NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE : TOAST

1. Quit
2. Standing In The Light Of Love
3. Goin' Home
4. Timberline
5. Gateway Of Love
6. How Ya Doin'?
7. Boom Boom Boom

Label : Reprise

Release Date : July 8, 2022

Length : 52:00

Review (AllMusic) : The year before Neil Young tracked 2002's meandering and sometimes draggy Are You Passionate?, he recorded some of the songs with his longtime backing band Crazy Horse, trying on the fit of the semi-soulful material with them before ultimately choosing to re-record with groove masters Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Seven-song album Toast consists of the long-shelved Crazy Horse sessions from 2001 and includes versions of four songs that materialized in different forms on Are You Passionate? as well as three previously unreleased outtakes. Despite their reputation as one of rock & roll's loosest, scrappiest institutions, Crazy Horse's playing is surprisingly refined on Toast, with their takes on some of the Are You Passionate? tunes being hard to differentiate from the ever-smooth Booker T. versions. "How Ya Doin'?" (aka "Mr. Disappointment") is superior on Toast, with the tempo slowed just a little bit and Young approaching the vocals with his familiar achy near-falsetto rather than the experimental grumble he sang with on the AYP? version. Crazy Horse fits right into the mellow groove of "Quit," and "Goin' Home" (a rocking tune that sounds more like a Ragged Glory leftover than a soul exercise) was the only song on AYP? played by Young and Crazy Horse, so the Toast version sounds nearly identical. The songs that didn't end up on AYP? are similar in tone to "Goin' Home," with "Standing in the Light of Love" built on snarly riffs and pensive playing and "Timberline" stomping along in a similar fashion. The remaining tracks find Young and his band stretching out in lingering jams. "Gateway of Love" ambles on for more than ten minutes, like a more tropical "Like a Hurricane," and "Boom Boom Boom" (presented as closing track "She's a Healer" on AYP?) expands on the whispery blues of the album version with extra instrumental passages, including a lengthy trumpet solo. It's a lot less slick than the AYP? rendition, recalling more of a bleary Tonight's the Night energy than the pitch-perfect session-musician feel of the album version. Whether you prefer the slightly more organic vibe of Toast or the cleaned-up Are You Passionate? will depend on your personal relationship with Young's massive catalog. For fans of his early moody rock or the rough-edged brilliance he always locked into with Crazy Horse, Toast will be a clear favorite more than just an interesting companion piece.

Review (Enola) : De releases van nieuw werk van Neil Young volgen elkaar tegenwoordig in sneltreintempo op. Er werden nog maar net drie live-albums in zijn nieuwe Official Bootleg Series-reeks uitgebracht, volgende maand staat er een registratie van z'n Europese tournee met Promise Of The Real uit 2019 op de planning en recent kondigde hij aan dat hij net een derde plaat op een rij met Crazy Horse heeft afgewerkt. Maar deze Toast, een studioalbum met Crazy Horse uit 2001, is waarschijnlijk hetgene waar het meest reikhalzend naar uitgekeken werd. Het verhaal achter deze plaat is classic Neil Young. In 2001 nam hij samen met Crazy Horse een album op in de Toast studio in de - toendertijd - verloederde Mission-wijk in San Francisco. Omdat het album, dat hoofdzakelijk over z'n toenmalige huwelijksproblemen handelde, te droef was naar zijn goesting besloot hij de opnames te laten voor wat ze waren. In de plaats daarvan trok hij wat later met de legendarische soulband Booker T. & The M.G.'s - met wie hij in 1993 al een tournee ondernam - de studio in om "Are You Passionate?" op te nemen, waarvoor hij een aantal nummers in al dan niet herwerkte versie recycleerde. Een experiment met soul dat overigens niet erg geslaagd was. Pas een jaar of tien later kwam Young plots op de proppen met het nieuws dat hij voor "Are You Passionate?" een album opgenomen had met Crazy Horse dat hij toen op de planken had laten liggen omdat het album qua sfeer 'te droef' was. Een verloren album met zijn beste begeleidingsband werkt natuurlijk tot de verbeelding en al spoedig nam het album welhaast mythische proporties aan onder de fans. Iets meer dan 20 jaar laat Young nu eindelijk het zeven nummers tellende album op de wereld los. Van die zeven songs is er een dat in een bijna identieke versie op "Are you Passionate?" stond. "Goin' Home" was dan wel het verreweg het beste nummer van het album, het sloeg er als een tang op een varken. Hier vindt het nummer - overigens vintage Crazy Horse - eindelijk zijn echte thuis. Van de andere songs waren er drie al eerder uitgebracht met Booker T. & The M.G.'s, maar evenveel liedjes krijgen hier nu eindelijk hun debuut. Opener "Quit" is een van de nummers die in 2002 al verscheen. Hoewel deze ongepolijste versie een verbetering is, blijft het nummer toch enigszins ondermaats. Tekstueel is het een sombere beschouwing van z'n huwelijk, met een steeds herhaald "Don't say you love me" op backing vocals door zijn toenmalige echtgenote Pegi van wie hij uiteindelijk in 2014 zou scheiden. Gelukkig schakelt het album al meteen daarna een niveau hoger. "Standing In The Light Of Love" is een in wezen doodeenvoudig nummer waarop Crazy Horse stampvoetend door mag razen. Iets wat de band ook met volle overtuiging mag doen in "Timberline" - over een werkloze houtbewerker die de Here vindt. Niets nieuws onder de zon, maar hoeft dat dan? Daarnaast zijn er de nummers waarop de band wat gas terugneemt en z'n tijd neemt om hun verhaal te vertellen. "Gateway Of Love" is een nummer dat herinneringen oproept aan Sleeps With Angels met z'n trage, bezwerende groove. Op de twee nummers die hij eerder onder een andere naam uitbracht, zit de soul diep verweven. "How Ya Doin'" (dat later "Mr. Disappointment" werd) klinkt hier rafeliger en meer doorleefd. Het lang uitgesponnen slotnummer (dertien minuten) "Boom Boom Boom" (oftewel "She's A Healer") verandert een paar keer van richting maar verveelt geen moment. Hier toont Crazy Horse meesterlijk aan dat de band het heus niet alleen van z'n epische jams moet hebben. Overigens zorgt de subtiele trompet van Tom Bray voor een accent dat we niet meteen gewoon zijn op Young's platen. Een vergeten meesterwerk? Dat is net iets te veel eer (het is geen Ragged Glory of Sleeps With Angels uit het voorgaande decennium), maar een heel goed album? Dat is het dan weer wel. Al begrijpen we best dat Young het in de schuif liet liggen - zijn open ontboezemingen over z'n huwelijksperikelen waren toen net iets te vers - toch kunnen we niet anders dan blij zijn dat het nu alsnog uitgebracht wordt. want laat ons eerlijk zijn: van dit niveau is nieuw werk van Young de laatste jaren maar zelden.

Review (Pitchfork) : Among Neil Young's one-off genre-experiment albums, 2002's Are You Passionate? enjoys neither the adoring cult of his foray into synth-pop sci-fi nor the infamy of the rockabilly revival act that got him sued for not sounding enough like himself. Perhaps that's because Are You Passionate?'s animating conceit-a tracklist heavy on slow-burning ballads that nod in the direction of 1960s R&B, backed by the veteran soul men of Booker T. and the M.G.'s-seems like the sort of thing any number of Young's boomer contemporaries might have attempted a few decades into their respective careers. It isn't as outwardly experimental as the others, but it has its charms. One of Young's many personae is the songwriter who can churn out a beautiful melody without much apparent effort, and the classic-soul trappings of Are You Passionate? seemed to bring that side out of him, with several unusually sumptuous tunes to distinguish it from his other efforts of the same era. Not a bad record, but hardly anyone's favorite Neil Young album, either. Which makes Toast, a previously unreleased seven-song collection recorded in 2001, over half of which eventually made its way to Are You Passionate? in marginally revised form, a decidedly fans-only affair. The hook: Before bringing the M.G.'s into the studio, Young recorded these songs with Crazy Horse, the band of brilliant rock primitivists who have backed him on many of his best-loved albums over the years. You might think, given that premise, that Toast would replace the in-the-pocket smokiness of Are You Passionate? highlights like "Quit" and "Mr. Disappointment" (retitled "How Ya Doin'" here) with Crazy Horse's familiar unrefined squall. Instead, the alternate versions demonstrate that Young had the understated R&B of Are You Passionate? in mind before he ever hired the M.G.s to play it, and that Crazy Horse was better than anyone could have reasonably expected at delivering the sorts of grooves he was after. The Crazy Horse rendition of "Quit" that opens Toast, for instance, is hardly distinguishable from the one the M.G.s laid down the following year, other than by its slightly darker recording fidelity. That isn't exactly a mark against it. It's a good song, with a lilting melody and a tear-jerking premise: Young spends the verses trying in vain to convince a partner not to leave, despite the pain he's caused her, before a chorus that consists only of her stone-faced response: "Don't say you love me." The band is more than capable of conjuring the right atmosphere, which is something like a corner bar after the revelers have filed out and only the regulars remain. The rhythm section is appropriately laid-back; even the call-and-response backing vocal arrangement, the final version's most overt homage to Stax-era soul, is already in place. As on Are You Passionate?, Young's scorched guitar tone and pleasantly meandering leads provide a welcome contrast, elevating "Quit" beyond pastiche and toward something more idiosyncratic. "Goin' Home" and "How Ya Doin'" are similarly of a piece with their final forms. The former, the only track on the original album to feature Crazy Horse instead of the M.G.s, sounds, predictably, like the same band playing the same song. The latter becomes slightly less interesting in its Toast incarnation, replacing the Tom Waits-like gravelly low register Young tried out on the Are You Passionate? version with his usual clear-throated tenor. It's impressive that Crazy Horse were able to pull off the style of Are You Passionate? so well, but their adeptness raises an issue. Some roughness around the edges might have made these previously released tracks a little more distinctive; their surprising slickness means there's little compelling reason to put them on over the better-known versions. Three songs from the Toast sessions didn't make the cut for Are You Passionate?, and they appear as studio versions for the first time here. "Standing in the Light" sounds like cheap beer and fast cars, with a dumb-fun fuzztone riff and not much going on songwriting-wise beyond that. "Timberline" is in a similar hard-rocking lane, but with more interesting lyrics, sung from the perspective of a logger who loses his job, and consequently, his faith in God. "Gateway of Love" is the best of the unreleased tracks, a 10-minute guitar workout that differentiates itself from the many similar odysseys in the Horse catalog with a Latin-feeling polyrhythm instead of their standard four-four stomp. It's easy to understand why Young felt these songs didn't fit in with the lovelorn mood of Are You Passionate?, but they're all worth hearing at least once. The most compelling reason to give Toast a spin is "Boom Boom Boom," its 13-minute closer. Structurally, it isn't much different from "She's a Healer," the nine-minute version on Are You Passionate?, which is among the jazziest tunes in Young's canon, cycling between a menacing one-chord vamp and a more harmonically elaborate instrumental refrain, with plenty of group improvisation throughout. But its arrangement on Toast is richer and stranger, piling on layers of seasick piano and trumpet. And in contrast to the rest of the Are You Passionate? tracks on Toast, Crazy Horse's playing is noticeably rawer and more exploratory than the M.G.s' later take, always on the verge of falling apart, without the glue of Booker T's organ holding everything in place. The precarity of the performance is suited to Young's songwriting, which addresses his attachment to a woman who may or may not be ready to dump him. "There ain't no way I'm gonna let the good times go," he sings repeatedly, a line that might strike an inattentive listener to Are You Passionate? as a straightforward call for celebration. On Toast, there's no mistaking it for anything other than the desperate plea it is.