Not long ago, Neil Young announced that he is releasing a new album titled Living With War that he recorded in Los Angeles in just nine days. The ticker on his website reads: “I just finished a new record…a power trio with trumpet and 100 voices… recorded it earlier this month…I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan…”
The album will be available next Friday on his website where fans can listen to the songs for free. Beginning May 2nd, the songs will be available for free digital download. The CD will be available for purchase in early May.
I’ve been a big fan of Neil Young since way back in the seventies. I can’t say that I like everything he’s ever done, but I do like most of it. I especially like the noisy electric stuff with Crazy Horse, because Neil’s lyrical guitar solos with full-on harmonic distortion are masterpieces. (Listen to “Powderfinger” and “Like a Hurricane” off the live album, Weld, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.) His last few albums haven’t really clicked with me, but according to what I’ve heard about Living With War, I think it’s going to be like the noisy Neil Young albums that I love.
So how did the album come about?
Last month at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Texas, conference organizer Roland Swenson recalled Young’s “Ohio,” written after the Kent State shootings. Addressing Young, who was the conference’s keynote speaker, he said, “Mr. Young, we need another song.”
And so he set out to do just that.
On Friday, April 21, 2006, Justice Through Music was invited to a secret preview of the entire CD at Reprise Records Burbank headquarters. At 7:30 pm, a small cadre of people were ushered into a special listening room, and for the next 50 minutes, listen we did.
Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: this album rocks. It’s post ’80s electric Neil Young at his grunge best, and of the 10 cuts on Living With War, the first eight are mostly uptempo rockers. In fact, this may be the 60-year-old Young’s most crossover-worthy album yet, since many of the songs should appeal to fans of bands as diverse as Green Day and Pearl Jam and will likely be embraced on campuses across America.
But there’s one other tiny thing that makes this record stand out: it is one mother%^&*#% of a protest album. In fact, Living With War may just be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of rock.
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But Young kicks out the proverbial jams with the album’s centerpiece, “Let’s Impeach the President.” This song is a blistering, barnstorming indictment of our Commander-in-Thief, and Young borrows a page from Michael Moore here by letting Bush destroy himself with his own words. In the song’s midsection, Bush’s own recorded contradictory statements are juxtaposed against one another to create an incontrovertible pastiche of lies and contradictions while the background singers chant, “Flip… Flop… Flip… Flop…” Incendiary. The CD is worth buying for this one song alone.
Welcome back, noisy Neil.
Go here to find out everything about the album.
Video interview here.
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