To his loyal followers, Neil Young rules as a proud warrior. Cutting through the crap, relying on instinct, never compromising to expectation. His last two great records were Sleeps With Angels and Broken Arrow, twinned sprawls of swollen romanticism and gloomy undertow. Since then, you know, there's been a lot of ramble. So will the prince of ambient swamp bring him back, unadorned? Smell the coffee pal, Le Noise is an open freeway, a man travelling, searching for evidence of goodness amongst all the disaster that surrounds him. Holding onto some dignified spirit, a resemblance of a non-forgotten dream. Blues shot down in fx, faith still bleeding, defiant but cursed by memory. Hitchhiker explains Like An Inca, a hurt, tarnished statement from days that were hopefully buried and then came back uninvited. What falls is sepia, catching sudden illuminations blazing, caressing and vanishing into air. Desolation brings fruit, outta the decay, lost in drifting ruin, he returns and returns until he next takes flight. If you haven't figured it out by now, he's made a record that demands constant interrogation and belief.
