Neil Young "Weld" Review NME

SOLDER OF FORTUNE

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE 

Weld/Arc-Weld 

(Reprise/All formats)

I GUESS you just really had to be there to fully appreciate the surge of power that has been captured on these two discs, but for those devoted Neil Young & Crazy Horse fans who just couldn't make it to their US tour last spring, 'Weld' manages to give the illusion that you had a front row seat.

Live albums are usually hit and miss affairs, a fusing together of all the best bits from a successful tour in the hope that a valid and perhaps valuable document will be the end result. If it charts then that's a bonus! Neil Young & Crazy Horse have had a couple of stabs at making a live album, with varying degrees of success. 'Time Fades Away' from 1973 featured an all-new set of songs never released on record before, a shock tactic that baffled all those who were expecting a run-through of 'Harvest' and 'After The Goldrush' nuggets and a bitter blow for Young's record company, who were hoping for just that.

'Time Fades Away' (and the string of albums that came after it) was the benchmark for Young's independent spirit, for here was one rock'n'roll star who was not going to be pushed into his own past by anybody.

As the '70s progressed and punk took a hold, Neil Young & Crazy Horse surprised the world again by embracing the 'enemy' at their door. Rather than dismiss the rock revolution that punk was demanding at that time, Neil and his band plugged themselves in and gave their own version of how it should all come down. The result was the tongue-in-cheek titled 'Rust Never Sleeps', a brutal and brilliantly played celebration of rock ‘n' roll that was taken on the road with a set of giant-sized props and a sound to match.

The resulting live double album was '79's 'Live Rust', a set which delivered the man's past and present while, at the same stroke, elegantly signing off that particular stage of his career. 'Weld' is, to some extent, a sequel to 'Live Rust', and that same rush of 'mission accomplished' comes over strong when Young heaps praise on the tour's sound crew before signing this one off with an emotionally charged rendition of 'Roll Another Number'. The formula here follows that of 'Live Rust' too, indeed, six of the songs from that particular set have the test of time to muscle their way on to 'Weld'.

'Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black'), 'Cinnamon Girl', 'Cortez The Killer', 'Powderfinger', 'Like A Hurricane' and Tonight's The Night' are blasted out '90s style with a freshness and a deep knowledge of just how rock 'n' roll works that makes today's young Sub-Pop groomed guitar rebels look pretty sick and stupid.

Not that that's the aim of the game that Neil Young & Crazy Horse are playing here. It's the music and the creative comradeship of four lively minds that's on display, and the fruits of that friendship surpass any fly-by-night fad and supply 'Weld' with a bountiful harvest of quite astonishing rock music.

The old songs are stripped down and updated fo fit snugly against the new; so closely have they been shaped and ground down that it is sometimes difficult to spot the join. Nostalgia is flattened in favour of powerful progression and each song is a pop rivet which ultimately becomes an integral part of the entire construction that Neil Young & Crazy Horse are building onstage. Thus, 'Cinnamon Girl' is nudged against 'Mansion On The Hill' and ‘F—in' Up' from 'Ragged Glory', while 'Love And Only Love' provides the perfect opening theme for the equally impassioned 'Rockin' In The Free World' from 'Freedom'.

Throughout 'Weld' the sonic distortion of feedback, which was put to such great effect on 'Ragged Glory', has been brought into play and amplified still further. It's presence can be immediately felt like a stiff breeze on the opening 'Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)’, but by the time you get to 'Tonight's The Night' the black storm clouds of despair and frustrated anger have gathered and the breeze has developed into a full blown tornado.

The sheer force of the feedback frenzy that Young and his band whip up is intense, purifying and draining. As though the spirits who have been bottled up in the song for so many years (ex-Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and ex-CSN&Y roadie Bruce Berry, both of whom died through drugs) have been exorcised forever. As the feedback slowly fades away Young sounds exhausted but on top of the world. “The best," he mumbles to the roaring crowd.

For a further feedback fix try 'Arc', which has been soldered on to the 'Weld' package as an optional extra. Tour support band Sonic Youth are partly to thank for this; it was they who suggested to Young the idea of releasing a record of wall-to-wall feedback and 'Arc' is the glorious, if slightly wearing, result. A feedback symphony of noise that is the perfect accompaniment for what has to be the greatest live rock album ever recorded. Here it is in all its ragged glory. (10)

Edwin Pouncey