It's only been two years since Neil Young's last outing with Crazy Horse, so it's reasonable to be a bit surprised that he's reunited with them so soon after 2019's excellent Colorado. That album was significant in that it was the first NYCH album not to feature Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro since 2003's Greendale, which was the only Crazy Horse album he'd not been involved with since joining the band in 1975. His able replacement, Nils Lofgren, first played with Young on the album, After the Goldrush, so it's fair to say he had some idea of what he'd been drafted in to do. Perhaps that change has proven invigorating. Sampedro's playing was a superb counterpoint for Young's, but Lofgren's is, too, and he brings his piano-playing to the group as well. It's a welcome feature on many of Barn's songs, which suggests that there remains a willing desire within the band to search for ways to continue their collective musical journey.
But despite what Lofgren brings, the core of Crazy Horse has always been its rhythm section. There's never been a rhythm section quite like theirs. Billy Talbot's bass and Ralph Molina's drums are an irreplicable combination. They play with a ragged looseness, a wavering tightness and a near-telepathic 'feel' that produces an organic sound as tangible as moss on rock. These 78-year-old men have been constants throughout Young's 58-year career, and this is their 14th album. They know what they are doing. They have a sound that can be recognised in about half a note. But their predictability never comes at the expense of their vitality, and Barn is an excellent case in point. This is possibly the most assured-sounding album Neil and the Horse have recorded since 1990's Ragged Glory.
Unlike Ragged Glory, this isn't the work of a Grunge Godfather, but rather, an old bloke with old mates who still know more than a few things about how to craft a tune. Young's penchant for lyrics that capture their moment of creation have produced some masterpieces over the years, and plenty of cringe-worthy duds that date more quickly than smoked salmon. Here, he's largely got the balance right. This is an album that's very much a product of its time, but it's not hemmed in by it. 'Song of the Seasons' is a fine opener example of this. The reference to the Queen is an engaging one for a few reasons. For one, she's been Queen since Young was seven years old and married since he was two. The passing of her husband is something likely to impact on Young in exactly the same ways as it might anyone else, but soon after Young notes Prince Philip's death, he follows it with 'I feel her banners rippling in the rain', which is an intriguing image, suggestive of a storm, though the storm itself is not mentioned. One can easily infer the grief of an ordinary woman who's lost her partner after 73 years of marriage, but one can also envisage the public stoicism that shields the private pain of a public figurehead. And finally, there is the image of profound change that has reached out and over the wider world as a result of the Covid pandemic. The idea that this is an album about how we experience change only strengthens as the album progresses.
The notion of a 'song of the seasons coming through [him] now' feels like a kind of reply to Dylan's multitudes, in that the line works in both similar and distinctly different ways. Dylan contains, Young expresses. It's really just a question of emphasis, though; both men are conduits of far more than their personal stories. They are living histories, weavers of cultural tapestries. And from the song of the season, Young heads West.
'Heading West' makes the listener feel like a dog with its head out the window. It's a joyous song, Springsteen-esque in its wide-eyed wonder at a world that once changed so quickly as to be dazzling, and now captures in its open chords and raggedly crunching guitar the warm memories of such glorious times. Are we being reminded that change need not always bring fear and trepidation? Possibly. It's also possible that we're simply hearing the sound of a man (and his friends) rejoicing in their shared story. What's different about the song is the pulsing warmth of Lofgren's piano. The sound is more rhythmic than if Young were playing, more locked into the groove, padding it out the raw-boned gallop of the Talbot and Molina with extra musical colour and nuance. Molina rides the cymbals when it suits him, and the drums have a crisply metallic slap that add lightness and verve. It's a wonderful song, and supports the assertion from Young that for him, this album was a 'gift'. It really does sound like the band are in as happy a place as I've ever heard them.
The album isn't all sweetness and light, however. 'They Might Be Lost' is one of Young's great songs, operating on the extended-metaphor level that he's not really summoned since the sublime song, 'Peaceful Valley Boulevard' from 2009's Le Noise. The song's power rests entirely on the fusion of anxiety and hope that is suggested in the song's title, and the tense wonderful of what is to come, and indeed, what is the precise cause of that which has not. The harmonica is expressive, expounding on those same sentiments (anxiety and hope) to an extent, but adding a tonal shift towards a kind of forlorn acceptance that resolves the title's supposition by implication only.
It wouldn't be a Neil Young album if there wasn't a strident call for climate action and a passionate reproachment for the lack of it. Young's been telling us (correctly) that we've had mother nature on the run for fifty years, and it's clear to all but the most infuriating amongst us that she is really starting to stagger from exhaustion. As was the case on Colorado, it's the children and young people of the world for whom he feels most strongly, knowing how badly his generation has failed them and how much work they are going to have to do to rectify the sins of their parents. 'Human Race' is an angry song, with the tighter beat Young reserves for those times when he's genuinely pissed off. The last time it got an airing was on 2005's Living with War. He's right to bring it out, too, because the stakes are the same, if not higher. And similarly, to that album, even though Young's guitar is an excoriating delight, the song isn't long. It concludes well before it likely would have if this were a song on 2012's Psychedelic Pill, where the longest song was twenty-seven minutes. As much as it would be great to hear Young truly cut loose here, it's also satisfying to have him rein it in, as it keeps the focus on the song itself rather than the guitar storm that follows it. Performed live, I reckon this could end up well over twice its original length if not more, which would be quite something to hear. Young's guitar burns the air no matter who he plays with, but it always seems to be able to reach levels when he's playing with Crazy Horse that remain unreachable with others. They give him room, and he trusts in the space they provide.
There are many highlights on what is actually a pretty short album by NYCH standards, and I think it's all the better for it. It rewards repeated listening, not only sonically but lyrically. As Young notes on 'Tumblin' Thru the Years', life is a complicated thing. But as Barn affirms, it's still liveable, and with luck and the right people, something to be savoured. And celebrated.