Post by jptheprofessor on Oct 20, 2005 19:31:27 GMT -5
NEIL YOUNG – PRAIRIE WIND (Reprise) Neil Young reprises his role as a musical chameleon by changing his musical direction once again on his new album, Prairie Wind. This album finds Young returning to the Americana country-rock of his After the Gold Rush/Harvest period. Surviving a brain aneurysm and enduring the death of his father during the album’s recording, Young’s tone is reflective and reminiscent over Prairie Wind’s ten tracks. Recorded, mixed and engineered in Nashville, Prairie Wind takes Neil Young back to a warm, rural setting musically, with instrumentation such as dobro, pedal steel, fiddle, harmonica, and the emphasis on acoustic tones over electric. The arrangements are mostly stripped-down and simple, a nearly complete reversal from the busy and chaotic cacophony of Young’s ambitious last album, Greendale. Young comes to grips with mortality, after his own brush with death and the loss of his father, and uses Prairie Wind to celebrate simple pleasures and memories. Neil tips his hat to contemporaries he has weathered his career with on the opening acoustic number “The Painter.” He celebrates the instrument that has endured with him on the folksy “This Old Guitar.” Neil celebrates childhood memories and longs for home on the homey and funky “Far From Home;” and offers devotion to his offspring on “Here For You.” “Falling Off The Face of the Earth” finds Neil rolling credits for the people in his life while he still has time to do so; while the gospel-tinged closer “When God Made Me” finds him pondering his Maker. Young paints lyrical imagery of his Canadian prairie youth on “It’s a Dream” and the title track “Prairie Wind,” and waxes nostalgic about Elvis on “He Was the King.” Only one song, the edgy “No Wonder,” references the present, vaguely pondering if we’re better or worse off than the days of Neil Young’s youth. As he closes in on his 60th birthday, Neil Young celebrates life and family, and starts getting his own house in order on Prairie Wind. This is a reflective, thoughtful and sentimental album, but also a moody and somber one. Reminded of his own mortality, Neil Young stops, reflects and smells the roses on this album, while he still has time to do so.