Neil Young - Le Noise

If the hype for this album stated it was just Neil, his guitar and a bunch of new songs and some old unreleased songs there would have been hordes waiting to pick it up. The fact that its just Neil Young a distorted electric guitar and a strange sonic sounding production by Daniel Lanois (previous works include: U2's The Joshua tree and Bob Dylan's Time out of Mind) led to shorter queues at the tills. There has been some good stuff written about this album and equally some terrible things, one critic called it unlistenable and the reviews on Amazon are of equally divided opinion. I think that after over 40 years of producing music the fact that a new release from Neil Young even divides his own fans is a great thing. I loved this album, his recent releases have been a little hit and miss for me but as soon as I played this I found it the most exciting thing he'd done since ragged glory or sleeps with angels. The songs stripped back to just a fuzzy guitar and echoey vocals highlight the strength of the song writing here with new tracks coupled with some older songs left unrecorded (the hitch hiker shares a verse with like an Inca from Trans).

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Neil Young

1. "Walk with Me" – 5:05


2. "Sign of Love" – 3:58


3. "Someone's Gonna Rescue You" – 3:29


4. "Love and War" – 5:37


5. "Angry World" – 4:11


6. "Hitchhiker" – 5:32


7. "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" – 7:10


8. "Rumblin'" – 3:39

Listen on spotify