Neil Young - Le Noise (2010)

Even by his own unpredictable standards, Neil Young's had a pretty contradictory decade. The confusingly titled Chrome Dreams II was one highlight, but some of its best tracks were decades-old. Last year's Fork in the Road was a lark, a neo-concept album about electric cars whose humor undersold Young's convictions. His angriest albums, Living With War and Greendale, were each instantly dated time capsules. His prettiest, Silver & Gold and Prairie Wind, were also pretty disposable, and there are likely about as many people who pull out Are You Passionate? as there are those waiting for a Road Rock Vol. 2.

Yet all those subpar, uneven, or just plain odd releases matter, because they show the guy's still trying to bottle whatever it is that's been swimming in his soul for the better part of five full decades. Which brings us to Le Noise, Young's perhaps inevitable team-up with famed producer Daniel Lanois. The album features mostly just Young, electric guitar, and a battery of effects-- echoing, resonating, occasionally roaring, and raging. Not that Young necessarily needs all that. With his sneering warble and ragged but right guitar playing, he's always been his own best effect, but here Young and Lanois relish the happy accidents both producer and artist have always embraced, resisting the urge to sand off the jagged edges into the ambient ether.

Of course, ambience is a big part of Le Noise's widescreen appeal, and Young's playing is as intriguingly exploratory as it is sometimes explosive, taking advantage of Lanois' trademark bag of tricks like a kid testing pedals in a guitar store. Still, given its familiar crunch and gait, it's hard to hear Le Noise without imagining the famously ramshackle backing of Crazy Horse anchoring the riffy murk of songs like "Walk With Me", "Sign of Love", "Angry World" or even the queasy, off-kilter "Rumblin'".