Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972 - 1976)

Neil Young

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Released on 11/23/20 by Reprise
Main artists: Neil Young
Genre: Rock

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For Neil Young, the early to mid-'70s was a time marked by his first taste of an initial revulsion to superstardom. In the wake of the success of Harvest, Young went on an often unhappy journey of self-discovery and reappraisal brought on by the end of his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress and the overdose deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. All of this was refracted through the moody lens of a trio of studio records known as the "Ditch Trilogy": On the Beach, Tonight's the Night and Zuma. This epochal period in Young's story has now been sweepingly documented by Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972-1976), a 10-part box set, arranged chronologically, whose first run sold out on Young's website in November 2020. Best of all, its 139 tracks, 49 of which were unreleased and 12 previously unheard new songs, are all presented here in the brilliant high-resolution sound that's a hallmark of the Neil Young Archives.

While ten albums may sound like too much Young even for collectors and longtime fans, Archives Vol. II includes three previously released albums: Homegrown from 1974-75 (released in 2020), and the live albums, Tuscaloosa (2019)—a much cheerier document from the same '73 Harvest tour that produced the troubled live album, Time Fades Away—and Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live (2018) recorded the same year on the Sunset Strip with the Crazy Horse rhythm section joined by guitarist/pianist Nils Lofgren and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith in a band Young called the Santa Monica Flyers.

The new songs, many of which were previously known to collectors, include a piano and dobro-led meditation on spirituality set to a steady push-pull 7/8 rhythm entitled "Goodbye Christians on the Shore." "Sweet Joni" is a rough-hewn tribute to Young's fellow Canadian who makes a guest appearance later in this set in her song, "Raised on Robbery." Deeper in there's another quartet of new songs headlined by "Frozen Man," where the singer wonders "who could live inside this frozen man" while a tale unspools that parallels Young's emotional struggles and wanderings during this very fraught decade. As for revelations among the live recordings on Archives Vol. II, there's Odeon Budokan, a mashup of unreleased live material from a pair of 1976 shows from Budokan Hall in Tokyo and London's Hammersmith Odeon. By then, Young had recovered his confidence and emotional equilibrium and is rocking out with Crazy Horse on a familiar set that finishes with an epic version of "Cortez the Killer." Most of the collection's greatest pleasures lie in unreleased versions of previously released tunes. One of the albums here, The Old Homestead opens and closes with unreleased versions of "Love/Art Blues," a tune first officially heard on the live CSNY 1974 album and whose lyrics perfectly encapsulate the dilemma Young found himself in during the period covered by Archives Vol. II 1972-1976: "I've got the love art blues/ Don't know which one to choose/ There's really something to lose/ With these love art blues." © Robert Baird/Qobuz

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Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972 - 1976)

Neil Young

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