Neil Young - 'Fork in the Road' (Reprise) Released 06/04/09

You’ve to hand it to Neil Young. At a stage of his career when most equally durable artists would have to single-handedly orchestrate lasting world peace to elicit anything beyond an apathetic shrug from their switched-off fan base, 63-year old Young’s new material is still capable of whipping admirers into a frenzy.

Only recently the reactions have been anything but positive. Commentators who’ve heard ‘Fork in the Road’ tracks live have been competing to come up with the most damning dismissal of the new stuff. The general assessment? Young should promptly dig a very deep hole, chuck all evidence of these songs’ existence in it, sprinkle in liberal dosages of highly combustible liquids and follow that procedure with a lit match. 

But is ‘Fork in the Road’ really a reputation-busting piece of crap? Or does it perhaps pack potential to become a misunderstood future classic ala ‘Tonight’s the Night’, panned by fans upon first encounter but later declared one of Young’s very finest works? Not quite. ‘Fork in the Road’ is that most dispiriting of things: yet another hastily assembled Neil Young album that runs out of gas inspiration-wise well before the finish line.

Not that ‘Fork in the Road’ is a total disaster. ‘When Worlds Collide’ might be a groove in search of a song, but what a groove it is, a lean, toned stomp, with Young ripping searing blue notes from his guitar on top. The unchallenging boogie of ‘Fuel Line’ and trashy but strangely charming single-chord rocker ‘Johnny Magic’ are infused with a genuine sense of excitement and plenty more invigorating energy than you’d expect from a guy who’s been at this for 40-odd years. ‘Just Singing a Song’ finds Young in his best-loved guise, a distortion-drenched balladeer capable of coating aching melodies in the kind of instantly recognisable, soaring guitar noise that suggests he’s taking out a lifetime’s reserve of frustration, anger and grudges on his instrument as the tapes roll. Most of the rest falls flat. Far too much of ‘Fork in the Road’ sounds forced, with clunky will-this-do lyrics and generic melodies emitting the unexciting whiff of an artist running on fumes, flicking through today’s papers to generate material for songwriting sessions.

Admirers of 2003’s ambitious but seriously undercooked, ecology-inspired mess ‘Greendale’ or the spirited but fatally one-dimensional anti-war opus ‘Living With War’ (2006) might be pleased to hear another muddled concept album. This one can’t quite decide whether it’s a celebration of the Linc-Volt hybrid car project Young’s been involved in (tons of songs with the word ‘road’ in the title here nod in this direction) or a condemnation of the impending global financial meltdown, delivered with all the clarity you’d expect from a chap who’s amassed vast fortunes in a profession – a bona-fide rock legend – where redundancies aren’t on the cards anytime soon. Those hoping for another ‘Chrome Dreams II’ (2007), a diverse set of strong songs, of the like Young used to write before becoming a modern-day protest singer willing to sacrifice personal for the political and quality control for the topicality that comes with writing and recording albums in a matter of days, though, will almost certainly be disappointed.