Rust Never Sleeps.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Reprise)

Neil Young must be the only personality who appeared at Woodstock to still be in full control of his creative powers a decade later. At Woodstock Young was with those wimps of West Coast schmaltz Crosby, Stills and Nash. It was this association that first brought Young international recognition.

The decade since Woodstock saw Young rise to superstardom with albums like After the Goldrush and Harvest. Young found the pressures of stardom too great for him. He thus committed, either intentionally or by accident, virtual commercial suicide with albums like Journey Through the Past (a film sound track composed of live recordings and rehearsal tapes) and Time Fades A way (a poorly recorded live album composed entirely of new material.)

Freed of the pressures of an audience who expected him to play smooth country music, Young proceeded to put out a series of raw dark records that attained various heights of brilliance. The last album, Comes a Time, marked a return to something of the style of Harvest, and also to commercial success.

Neil Young has taught his audience to expect the unexpected from him. No doubt Rust Never Sleeps will come as something of a shock to those who thought that Comes a Time was the last word in country sentimentality. It is typical of Young that while Comes a Time was storming the airways with its' gentle orchestral sound, he was embarking on a tour described in Rolling Stone as a "heavy metal tour de force."

Tour de Force

It was Young's biggest American tour in some years. The shows were something new in that they were fully scripted and featured props such as a four foot harmonica, a towering microphone and huge oversized amps. Young played the role of a child dreaming about rock and roll, while various characters such as Jawas from Star Wars (called "road eyes") wandered about making themselves useful setting up equipment.

The first half of the show Young played acoustic music alone, while in the second half he was joined by his backing group Crazy Horse to play a phenomenally loud electric set. The idea was for people to leave saying that "Neil Young is the loudest thing they'd ever heard."

Recorded live with just harmonica and guitar, it comes across more as a lament for all those sixties rock stars who continue to put out albums of tired music - who are virtually "rusting" away.

The other songs on side one display some of Young's best writing in years, both melodically and lyrically, with pastoral images of the Pioneer days and the old West intertwined with Hollywood. Pocahontas is an especially emotive song about the plight of the Indian and the injustices perpetrated by the white man. Ride My Llama, which could be classified as a South American extraterrestrial love song, displays Young's ability to write convincingly about almost anything.

The acoustic guitar playing on these tracks has a raw sound compared to Comes a Time but ultimately it is just as effective, if not more so, and emphasises the rock feel of the songs.

It's been said that Neil Young will never make an album without a flaw (remember the endless Will To Love on American Stars V Bars). Sail Away is it on this album. As a song in itself it works all right, but with Nicollette Larson resurrected on backing vocals, and Carl Himmel and Joe Osborn on bass and drums, it sounds like an out-take from the Comes a Time sessions. As such it doesn't fit with the other acoustic music. However, this is really a minor gripe.

Side two is entirely electric music played with Crazy Horse. All four songs are recorded live on the "Rust Never Sleeps" tour, although the audience reaction is edited out on all but the last track.

The first song, Powder finger continues the theme of Pioneer America and includes some fairly typical Neil Young guitar. Welfare Mothers, however, is something a little newer. Featuring the line, "Welfare Mothers make better lovers" the song exhibits Young's somewhat sardonic humour. Sedan Delivery has a definite New Wave sound and is perhaps the fastest song in terms of tempo that Young has ever written. His voice is ideally suited to the chanted wailing lyrics about life in an urban chemical world. It is interesting to note that Sedan Delivery, together with Powder finger, was originally intended for American Stars 'n ' Bars, and so dates back to 1977, the year that 'New Wave' first began to take hold.

Young has said of the new wave movement in music: — "People are not going to come back and see the same thing over and over again. It's got to change. It's the [unclear: sna] that eats itself. Punk music, New Wave [unclear: ya] can call it what you want. Its rock and [unclear: rol] and to me, it's still the basis of what's [unclear: going] on."

The closing track of Rust Never Sleeps underlines this statement. In a reprise of the opening track, retitled Hey, Hey, My, My (Into the Black), this occasionally reworded electric version takes on the grandeur of a true anthem to Rock and Roll. Recorded live, even played at low volumes it sounds loud. Incorporating large [unclear: amo] of feedback, static, or whatever it is that [unclear: n kes] such a cacophonic sound, the song lumbers to heights that give it a depth beyond the typically compact Neil Young lyrics. [unclear: I] the process it makes a statement about [unclear: Ro] and Roll, about the joy of playing such our rageous aggressive music, that manages to span the feelings of the sixties and seventies, and tie together the old and new wave

Rust Never Sleeps is simply Neil Young' best album at least since Tonight's the Nigh Song for song if leaves Comes a Time for dead. On this evidence it is obvious that Neil Young is not going to rust or fade away for a few years yet. Though, as the I man himself said:—

"You can only have it for so long before you don't have it anymore. You become an old timer.... which......I could be............I don't know. After all, its just me and Frank Sinatra left on Reprise Records."

Andrew McCallum.