The Errant Æsthete

NY Times art section today is packed with powerhouse music and the troubadors who created and crafted the sounds, including the incomparable Neil Young. His new album, “Chrome Dreams II” (Reprise) is named after “Chrome Dreams,” a 1977 album Mr. Young never released and takes a slice through his present and past, time-warping through his career, a career he defines as one where he continues to “work for the Muse.”

Many of the album’s songs revolve around a “spiritual quest,” Mr. Young said. “There’s a lot of thinking going on in the record, pondering and kind of searching for the experience that enlightens you in some way.” In “Ever After” he sings, with characteristic simplicity, “The world is full of questions/Some are answered, some are not/The only faith you’re keepin’/Is the faith that you still got.”

Oftentimes the best reviews come from fans. This one from Steve from “Somewhere just beyond or before the crossroads ” on Amazon: “…and then there is Neal….He who can take you round the bend ( and over the rainbow), set you up for the rising sun needing shades, then rifle a ton of lonely star drenched riffs…to take you into the twilight zone…he tempers all this with a bit humour…”dirty ol man” and a heavy dose of prayer and redemption….this is a great recording…. “