Canadian alt-rock icon Neil Young returns after last year's less than universally adored 'Fork In The Road'. Joining forces with respected producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Brian Eno), Young creates a rudimentary sound with nothing but vocals, guitar and a barrel load of effects. Initially intriguing, the technique soon wears thin, leaving just a small number of immensely compelling tracks to hold up the entire record.
Recording an entire rock album with just guitar and vocals is an ambitious feat, and while Lanois' exacting production does give a marvellously gritty and visceral quality to these songs, it sometimes detracts from the melodies, blanketing 'Le Noise' in a fuzzy distortion that ends up making these eight songs all sound more or less the same. For every pleasing rhythm and roving riff, like those on 'Someone's Gonna Rescue You', there's an over-zealous use of effects on Young's already sharp and distinctive voice making it overly piercing, as on 'Sign of Love'. And while opener 'Walk With Me' instantly creates a tense, gripping atmosphere, at seven minutes in length, the less effect-ridden 'Peaceful Valley Boulevard' is tediously drawn out.
Once the preliminary grasp of this raw, basic sound loosens, the lyrics are all that's left to keep you interested, and while Young's poeticisms are sporadically absorbing, his subjects are consistently dreary, continuing his obsession with war, freedom and the evils of modern man. Of this, Young is sorely aware, commenting himself on this preoccupation in the minimal 'Love and War'. One of Le Noise's more potent tracks, it hears Young utter "I said a lot of things that I can take back, but I don't really know If I want to/and songs about love I sang songs about war since the back streets of Toronto/I sang for justice and I hit a bad chord but I still try to sing about love and war".
Young should indeed be commended for the courage and ingenuity to make an album that is genuinely surprising after five decades in the business, but the one great idea here isn't quite enough to sustain Le Noise for its 38 minute duration.
