Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Reprise Records 2019
Colorado is the first new album from Neil Young & Crazy Horse since 2012’s Psychedelic Pill, which was critically acclaimed and one of his best-selling albums in years.
As the name suggests, Colorado was recorded in the rocky Mountains of Colorado and was co-produced by Neil Young and John Hanlon, who has worked with Young on many albums including Americana, Psychedelic Pill, and Peace Train.
Hanlon has also worked with the cream of the crop of American/Canadian recording artists in his long and distinguished career including Cat Stevens, Stephen Stills, Dennis Wilson and T-Bone Burnett, to name a few.
As with most of Neil Young’s albums, Colorado was mostly recorded live in the studio and the resultant audio fidelity is remarkable.
We should treasure Neil for being so doggedly determined to be so old-school. Every one of his albums has a vibrancy that is sadly lacking in so many modern albums.
It helps, of course, to surround yourself with an outstanding ensemble of talented musicians who are comfortable with the concept of extemporising on a theme.
It’s fascinating to note that Neil Young still has two of his original Crazy Horse bandmates playing with him – Billy Talbot on bass and Ralph Molina on drums have survived the long and often tortuous journey.
On this album Young is joined by guitar virtuoso, Nils Lofgren – who, interestingly, mostly plays rhythm guitar with only carefully selected snatches of lead thrown in.
Neil Young plays all the lead guitar lines in his distinctive primal style. It’s raw and guttural and often consists of single notes tortured out of his guitar as if he is wringing the neck to extract every drop of juice.
It is a style that tells us a lot about the man and his band, because he seems to have put together the ultimate band of demolition experts.
They deconstruct everything back to the basics before carefully rebuilding using only the essential elements. Ironically, only master musicians can do this successfully.
Colorado is the best album Neil has presented since the wonderful Psychedelic Pill.
