Neil Young has tended to use Promise Of The Real as his backing band of choice recently, but Crazy Horse are evidently never too far from his thoughts.
Coming after a series of US shows last year, Colorado (his first album with the Horse since 2012’s Psychedelic Pill) is notable for the reintroduction of original guitarist Nils Lofgren to the lineup, replacing the departed ‘Poncho’ Sampedro.
It kicks like a bastard too. She Showed Me Love is the customary concession to a ragged Horse jam: 13-plus minutes of distorted fury, guitars lurching and crashing as Young delivers an incensed eco missive that’s not without humour. No longer on the run, Mother Nature is instead ‘pushing Earth in a baby carriage’.
This recurring theme in Young’s work is echoed in the equally powerful yelp of Shut It Down and the altogether more downtempo Green Is Blue.
At other times he appears infinitely vulnerable, his faltering voice a plaintive husk on the gentle I Do and coming over all wistful on the moving Olden Days, which pays tribute to loved ones he’s lost along the way.
