Neil Young's a pill

Notwithstanding his long-voiced disdain for digital recording, I've always felt that Neil Young - almost along among major artists - fully embraced the musical freedom made possible by the digital age.

When other artists used the extra 25-40 minutes made possible in the CD format to turn 10-song albums into 16-song albums, Neil (sometimes with Crazy Horse, sometimes with his more mellow stoner buds) just made his songs longer - sometimes, well over 10 minutes long.  More guitar solos, longer guitar solos, and on occasion, the epic narrative - "Cortez the Killer" on steroids, if you will.

On Psychedelic Pill, Neil and Crazy Horse set out to test the boundaries of that freedom.  The first song, "Driftin' Back," is over 27 minutes long, or roughly 7 minutes longer than the amount of music that could be crammed on one side of an old-style vinyl LP (plus, there are three other songs longer than 16 minutes - and you thought Dylan's "Tempest" was an epic?).  We're getting into some serious Grateful Dead territory with that kind of song length - I mean, "Dark Star" isn't even that long.  And it sounds exactly what you would imagine a 27-minute song from Neil Young with Crazy Horse would sound like - verses that build into a crescendo in the chorus, with lots of guitar interplay between Neil and Frank Sampedro in between. 

And what is the song about?  The nightmare of recording in the digital age, of course (among other things that aren't as fun now that things are so modern).  Check out this verse:

When you hear my song now
You only get 5%
You used to get it all now
You used to feel it all
Blockin' out my anger
Blockin' out my anger
Blockin' out my anger
Blockin' out my anger

That's absolutely true, but then on the other hand, I don't remember a lot of 27-minute songs on those vinyl classics like "After the Gold Rush" and "Rust Never Sleeps."   In the end, there's something pretty funny (at least to me) about a band that takes full advantage of technology that didn't exist 30 years ago to rail on about said technology. 

Don't get me wrong - I love Neil Young, and I own more Neil Young albums than I do albums by Springsteen, or Dylan, or the Beatles, or even the Stones.  And Psychedelic Pill, the second Neil with Crazy Horse album we've been treated to this year, sounds great - a lot better than anything he's released in recent memory, in fact.  I'll be listening to it a lot, and since there are some mornings when 27 minutes is the perfect amount of running time for my modest ability, "Driftin' Back" will come in very handy.

"Handwritten" - Just the basics, baby

My first year at Berkeley, one of the guys on my dorm floor was big fan of bands like Rush, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer - that ilk.  With the exception of Rush (sorry, fans - for me they're the musical equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard), I could enjoy that genre, but only in small doses.

I remember Brian laughing hysterically one day at lunch, and when asked what so funny, he pointed to the paper he was reading - specifically, an article about Bob Seger, who was coming to town in a couple of days - and said "get this - he calls Seger 'meat and potatoes rock and roll!'"  The rest of us just kind of looked at each other, and someone - I think it was me - said, "Uh, Brian - I don't think that was meant as an insult."

Nick Hornby's liner notes for "Handwritten," the new album by The Gaslight Anthem, begin with this:

It would be stupid to try and tell you that the music you're listening to is like nothing you've ever heard before.  The songs on the Gaslight Anthem's latest album are three or four minutes long, most of them, and they're played on loud electric guitars, and there are drums, and to be honest, if you haven't heard anything like this before, then you're probably listening to the wrong band anyway.

And that really says it all.  This is basic, stripped down rock 'n roll, an album 41 minutes long, leading off with what in the old days would have been called "the obvious single," and closing out with the record's lone ballad.  All in all, a total throwback to the days when you'd hear a band like this about every third song on the radio.

And you know what?  It's great.  It's got more energy than any record I've listened to this year, it's got hooks, and yes - it's got those loud guitars and drums that Hornby talks about.  It's a sound that sounds as good today as it did in any decade since rock and roll first hit the airwaves.  Is it groundbreaking?  Is it historic?  Is it one of the best albums ever made?  No.  But it sets a goal, and achieves it without breaking a sweat.  I have no idea how well it's selling, but I hope it's a big hit - there's always room for an album like this.

"The ghosts are a comfort to me"

You have to wonder if, when Patterson Hood scheduled the release of his new album "Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance" for September 11, he had any idea that two powerhouses were set to be released on the same day - Bob Dylan's "Tempest," which has had more written about it than any album in years, and "The Carpenter," the latest Rick Rubin-produced effort from rising stars The Avett Brothers.

What I know for certain is that when I visited Dimple Records to buy all three albums, two of them were very easy to find.  And I was lucky to find the last available copy of Patterson's new album, tucked into the middle of his very small section back in a remote corner of the store.

So it's not likely that "Heat Lightning" is going to make Patterson Hood a big star, or a household name, or anything remotely like that.  But after a couple of weeks of listening, it's possible that his album just might be the best of the three.  I say "just might" because Dylan's latest is clearly an epic effort, and it's more a matter of deciding how good it is - is it great, or is it the latest masterpiece in a career chock full of them? 

"Heat Lightning" is a modest album - musically, Hood is not trying anything that he hasn't tried before.  But perhaps because the album is, as he writes in the liner notes, the soundtrack for memories of his family, in particular his beloved Great Uncle George A. Johnson (whom Hood immortalized in one of his best songs, "Sands of Iwo Jima"), he has an emotional connection with these songs that lends even the most simple ones a level of depth and a level of commitment that surpasses even his best work with Drive-By Truckers.

The title track is the emotional centerpiece of the album, recounting a visit to the house where Mr. Johnson lived for so many years (he was 91 when he died) and the flood of memories that hit Hood as a result:

Holding on alone to the place you always held
As heat lightning rumbles in the distance
The night creeps slowly by as  hold myself together
Somewhere between anguish and acceptance

But that is hardly the only great song on the album - on "Disappear," on "Better than the Truth," on "Leaving Time" and others, Hood achieves a level of clarity in singing and details that he has rarely matched before.  Nothing loud, and mostly very simple, but enormously powerful and affecting.

Hood's work for what may be the best working band in America has left no doubt that he is one of the great songwriters of this era.  But what he achieves on "Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance" may be more impressive than that.  If you can find a copy of the new album, and of course there is always the Internet to help with that, you should snap it up.