Living with War

Last summer Neil recorded what will likely be remembered as one of his best albums in Prairie Wind and then eight months later delivers a new protest album that will make even the most conservative thinkers rethink the state of the world. Maybe it takes wisdom and experience to get to the heart of issues these days, instead of the open mindedness of youth as in the past. Unlike some of the newer bands on the scene which focus on selling five million records so that they can buy that house in the Hills, it's the old man of Rock and Roll that delivers the familiar one two punch that makes people question the course we are on. Regardless of your politics, Living With War will rock your world and hit a chord that needs to be struck.

Even if you don't agree with Neil Young's politics, you can't help but be daunted by the intersection of his genius and ire on his second album in less than seven months. It is the very rare artist who is able to channel indignation and moral disgust in such a coherent and forceful way--without sacrificing any of the vivid imagery, passion, or the high level of musicality that we have come to expect from him over the past four decades. But that's not what elevates this album: it's his pure, naked, visceral reaction to the Bush administration's foreign policy, building on a canon of outrage that he began with 1970's "Ohio," penned in the wake of the Kent State student deaths. But here he goes one better, filling in the lines that he began to draw on 2003's Greendale about a family caught in changing times. But Young's done with musing about lost ideals. On Living with War, he demands much more from his audience, and himself. This is nothing less than a call for fearless action in extraordinarily fearful times. --Jaan Uhelszki