If Sleeps With Angels — Neil Young's 1994 reaction to the death of Seattle grunge-rock icon Kurt Cobain — has been called the sequel to his dark masterpiece Tonight's The Night, you could just as easily label Le Noise an extension of past work ranging from 1983's Trans to 2005's Prairie Wind.
To do so however, would also be to sell it way too short. Le Noise is in fact the boldest sounding, most artistically challenging record Neil Young has made in a decade or more. It is also easily his best album in at least that long. As is so often the case with Neil Young, time will probably tell. But on an initial listen, Le Noise has the feel of a classic.
This is also an album that is best played very loud on a stereo system with a pair of speakers that can take it (and preferably somewhere where you won't piss off the neighbors). Forget the iPod and the earbuds. There is simply no other way to properly experience the way producer Daniel Lanois has added multiple sonic dimensions to Neil's guitar the way he does on Le Noise, then played at maximum volume. This sucker needs to be turned up way loud.
Comparisons to the infamous syntho-pop of Trans are probably inevitable though. Producer Daniel Lanois' electronic treatments of Neil Young's massively cranked, white electric Gretsch guitar manifest themselves nearly as often in the whirring and clicking noises heard at the end of "Walk With Me" as they do in the deep humming, speaker rattling feedback of "The Hitchhiker." On the latter, Neil even manages to sneak in a line from "Like An Inca" — a song from, you guessed it, Trans.
The eight songs on Le Noise also find Neil Young at his most lyrically personal and introspective since Prairie Wind. On the aforementioned "Walk With Me" and "Hitchhiker," as well as on "Sign Of Love" and "Love And War," Neil Young reflects back on his life — and even questions some of his past decisions and behavior — before seeming to finally find a tentative sort of peace within himself.
Article comments
1 - RR
This is what I like about your writing, Glen: the way you're able take the current topic and weave it into the larger context of the entire body of work for those of us who aren't hardcores. It gives the reader the big picture as well as the immediate: the essence of good rock journalism.
2 - Greg Barbrick
Strange how the 00s have mirrored the 80s for Neil. Unprecedented weirdness capped by a brilliant "Neil Young" record (as David Geffen might put it). But I'm just taking your word on it at this point Glen, as I have to wait until Tuesday to hear it myself.
Based on what you and the guy from Rolling Stone have said though, Le Noise is the first Neil album I have been actually anticipating in quite a while.
3 - Glen Boyd
You don't need to wait Greg. It's out now.
-Glen
4 - thrasher
Excellent Glenn!
Yes, Neil Young has delivered a masterpiece with the starkly beautiful Le Noise. Again.
So has Neil Young found his new David Briggs? Or is Lanois now Young's Rick Rubin with the magic touch? We shall see, but we're thinking more the latter than the former.
5 - El Bicho
I enjoyed it but don't know if I would be throwing "masterpiece" around
6 - madoclake
Hi Glen,
I saw the LeNoise show at Massey Hall in Toronto a few nights ago. I had not heard the album before taking a seat. So my first experience of it was "live". And Neil had the amps turned way up. Your assessment of the songs nad how they should be experienced is correct. At Massey Hall the floors were vibrating with the feedback and "rumble". And (this is the key) that was the music. He worked on us for two hours to get to a point where we could hear the sound through him. I can't quite put my finger on it except to say that everyone in that room left wide eyed. It was very, very different from most concert experiences.