Neil Young – Fork in the Road (2009/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Neil Young – Fork in the Road (2009/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 38:41 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Has there ever been anything like an ordinary Neil Young album? No! Even after the release of more than 60 works in almost 45 years, the old Young premise applies: the constant constant remains the unsteady. His recordings move either completely to tease or to admire. “Fork In The Road” has a bit of both.

At first glance, you could perceive the record as a concept album. Neil’s 1957 Lincoln Continental, which he himself converted into an ecomobile prototype in the shed for years, acts as a bracket for all tracks. With this car, he has been driving around America for two years, absorbing impressions from the road, the big and small stories.

With the old quarrelsome Grantler, such an experience typically also leads to a journey into the inner self, to an insightful self-reflection. Fortunately, the young-typical cocktail of thundering anger and sensitive gentleness remains on this disc for the listener.

As raw as freshly harvested potatoes, the 63-year-old knocks the board around our ears, as if he is still 25. The unique Bratzgitarre of the master plows through the sheet music field like a scythe, never like a sickle. Shattered, scrappy rock with many blues elements and desert country form the basis. Everything here sounds like roaring engines and dusty highways.

However, the lively rock veteran does not appear dusty or even antiquated in any second. But just as aimlessness is the first premise of a trip into the blue, the songs sometimes seem a bit directionless and sketchy. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to stay on the ball. The whole CD grows from time to time and reveals its qualities in detail only after a few passages.

“Just Singing A Song Won’t Change The World” wants to wake up with a kind of rock meditation and fight lethargy. “Cough Up The Bucks” etched shaking and oiled up against the hegemonic Oil Companys and corpses of the economic crisis. “Off The Road” contains an introverted inventory of the inner spiritual highway. Campfire warm pleating guitar sounds envelop the little song and keep the wolves away.

Sure, party rock à la” Get Behind The Wheel ” seems relatively insignificant and more like a gap filler. But the big bomb doesn’t expect us until the end of the fork in the form of the beautiful ballad “Light A Candle”. Seductive and hypnotic, the acoustic guitar lures into the dark to be light to itself and all listeners. Beyond all religions, Uncle Neil recounts his spiritual commitment to infinity and soul wandering after death.

The fragile and at the same time indestructible melody has the makings of a classic, similar to the great deeds “Eldorado”, “Needle And The Damage Done” or “After The Goldrush”. In a single young song of this kind there is more movingly real feeling than in the whole emo scene combined.

After the last chord has faded, you want to toast the old romantic, while he, winking at you, disappears on the horizon with his old limousine. Compared to Neil Young, who only occasionally performs above average by his standards, many of his fellow artists remain on the side of the road. From this 57er Lincoln I like to let myself often take a piece of the way.

Tracklist:
1. Neil Young – When Worlds Collide (04:12)
2. Neil Young – Fuel Line (03:10)
3. Neil Young – Just Singing a Song (03:31)
4. Neil Young – Johnny Magic (04:17)
5. Neil Young – Cough up the Bucks (04:37)
6. Neil Young – Get Behind the Wheel (03:07)
7. Neil Young – Off the Road (03:21)
8. Neil Young – Hit the Road (03:35)
9. Neil Young – Light a Candle (03:00)
10. Neil Young – Fork in the Road (05:46)

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