Neil Young
Le Noise
Reprise
September 28

By Nicholas Proch

The latest release from Neil Young proves that he still has something to bring to the table of rock.  Unfortunately, in typical Young fashion, the same sound is repeated throughout the entire album.  When you first put in Le Noise, you are smacked in the face with electric guitars and hard driving percussion.  Once you regain your balance and sense of composure, you realize that every track on this album seems to have the same feel to it.

There are eight tracks of Young singing gently over a grunge inspired guitar track.  This works well in small doses, but it really gets repetitive after the third song.  As a matter of fact, the best song on the album may indeed be the first one.  “Walk With Me” is a great way to kick off an album, but some artists like to save their best songs for last, which Young clearly hasn’t heard about.

A particularly embarrassing track is “Hitchhiker,” which takes us through a history of Young’s struggles with drugs, alcohol and other social issues.  It’s not really a song as much as it is a story about his life.  It doesn’t get intimate and it never really seems serious enough to show that he is regretful for what he has done.

Things haven’t been the same for Young in his last few releases, but one can still understand the respect he has gotten throughout his tenure as a rock musician.  Being a part of so many groups and having such a great solo career makes it even harder to be great.  We’ll always hold someone like Young to a higher standard, which ultimately isn’t fair.  We’re all still waiting for another huge release from him, but for now we’ll have to listen to Le Noise, which is exactly what it is…noise.