Album Review: Neil Young 'Storytone'

No artist can both baffle and intrigue like Neil Young.

After releasing 2012's epic double album Psychedelic Pill with Crazy Horse, he published a memoir (Waging Heavy Peace), had a super-successful Kickstarter launch for his audio player Pono and then recorded a strange covers album (A Letter Home) inside Jack White's 1947 Voice-O-Graph vinyl recording booth.

While that album didn't reward repeat listenings, you have to respect Neil for trying something different.

Storytone comes on the heels of A Letter Home and Special Deluxe: A Memoir Of Life & Cars a second autobiography. Special Deluxe is very different from Waging Heavy Peace in that instead of telling the whole story, Neil has sorted through his life by remembering every automobile his family has had since he was a young boy.

Classic cars have always been a huge part of Neil's life.

Can he be both a spokesman for environmentalism and a lover of classic cars? It turns out that he can, as part of his passion is the creation of LincVolt, a 1959 Lincoln Continental converted into a hybrid-power vehicle.

Things haven't gone quite as planned for the LincVolt as numerous prototypes have failed and a proposed documentary on the car was cut short after the producer Larry Johnson passed away in 2010.

The new album is kind of a companion piece to Special Deluxe. Neil has even created beautifully sentimental drawings of all the vehicles mentioned in the book and one of those drawings acts as cover art to Storytone. The lyrics reflect a conflict between wanting to drive your car and wanting to keep the environment clean.

This duality is something that makes Neil less preachy and gives him an everyman feel.

Neil has always been an everyman, even at the height of his success he has always written from the perspective of a regular dude with regular problems.

Split into two versions, Storytone offers both a solo take on the ten tracks and then a second disc with heavily orchestrated versions. First single "Who's Gonna Stand Up?" offers a powerful chorus complete with epic strings while the lyrics present a very idealistic and simple view of saving the Earth. It is followed by "I Want To Drive My Car" which talks about the necessity in man to want to travel and leave his or her surroundings.

A bluesy shuffle, this is one of the few tracks that sound like classic Neil.

Most of the horn-infused tracks sound like outtakes from his late 80's blues band The Bluenotes. The more orchestral tracks lack the excitement of late 60's bands like Love and Jefferson Airplane while trying to tap into their message-heavy styles.

The solo recordings are Neil at his most vulnerable. His reedy tenor sending smoke signals over acoustic guitar and solo organ.

While these songs offer something for the listener to ponder, the album leaves the listener hungry for Neil to return to Crazy Horse and plug in his distortion pedal.

There is nothing here remotely close to the standard he has set and like A Letter Home, Storytone ultimately does not hook the listener into wanting to revisit the material. I give Storytone by Neil Young 3 Empty Lighthouses out of 5.

For more on Neil Young: http://neilyoung.com