(Disclaimer: Those looking for an overall description of the album will find what they're looking for in the "Review Body" section. The section titled "Track Reviews" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review might not be written in the point of view of a Neil Young fan.)

Overall Score: 11/15
Best song: “Walk With Me” or “Love and War”
Worst song: “Rumblin'”

Review Body:

Neil Young, prolific as ever, has entered his sixth decade in the music biz armed with a brand new album. Le Noise shows him returning to that HUGE and DISTORTED electric guitar sound that he had previously explored in the early '90s for albums like Ragged Glory and Weld. (Fortunately for my sanity, these songs aren't distorted so much that they sound like helicopter noises, but these are some pretty heavy guitar tones nevertheless.)

The weird thing about Le Noise is that it actually contains... er... songs. You know, things that have verses and choruses. Moreover, many of them are quite catchy, too. Ragged Glory, on the other hand, was more or less groove-based and he used his mega-distorted guitar as a means of providing a part of its texture. Here, he plays that guitar the same I way I expect he would play an acoustic guitar. That frequently creates some pretty cool effects in this album. I know, for instance, that some of his longtime fans would place Neil Young just one notch beneath God himself on the totem poles in their brains. ...Well, they're gonna flip when they hear Young doing a song like “Sign of Love” that features a reverb effect to his vocals coupled with a THUNDERING electric guitar, which makes it sound quite literally like he's God singing to the universe. ...And, oh yeah, those lyrics are pretty universalist as well. That's hardly a perfect song, but the melody is interesting enough to keep my attention and the riffs are good.

I like the album's opening number “Walk With Me” even more, because it's positively butt-whomping. For most of these songs, the only orchestration he uses is one guitar. (No drums, no keyboards, no washboards, etc.) But for that song, he pulls out two guitars. The more the merrier. (Well merrier perhaps isn't a good word to describe Neil Young music... I'm going to replace “merrier” with the phrase “more wrist-slitting.”) The stereo effect he creates with two guitars are really cool, so make sure you have a nice pair of headphones to get their full effect.

Fortunately for my poor, abused eardrums, not all of these songs feature heavily distorted guitar. “Love and War” is an extremely sullen ballad where it's just Young playing with a single acoustic guitar. ...And wow!!! It's one of the finest acoustic ballads I've ever heard him do. Musically it's quite simple and I swear I've heard its melody somewhere before, but the lyrics are a very personal account of how he's witnessed the effects of war on other people's lives through his years. There's a second acoustic song in this album, “Peaceful Valley Boulevard,” that features his typical sort of namby-pamby, tree-hugging environmentalist lyrics... But even so, it's a nice song to sit back and soak up, and I'm sure his fans will be immensely pleased with it. My only complaint is that it seems to drag on for far too long (seven minutes). (Speaking of Global Warming, how many hours do you think you could power an average air conditioner unit for every second it takes to power one of Neil Young's mega-distorted guitars?)

“Angry World” could very well be the scariest song Young has ever done. At least I can't immediately recall a scarier one. It's characterized by an eerie voice sample that loops endlessly throughout it; I can't decide if it's saying “Hate Me” or “He Ate Me.” Or maybe another listener thinks something entirely differently? “Hitchhiker” is another spooky song in which his mega-distorted guitar is used to illustrate seedy lyrics about his history of drug use. Once again, these lyrics are very personal, which I'm sure the fans are going to love to pieces. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of the closing song, “Rumblin',” where the distorted guitar seems a bit too blurry for me

But anyway, congratulations to Neil Young for creating his most kick-butt record in more than a decade, since 1995's Mirrorball. I was strongly considering awarding it a 12, in my infinite wisdom, because most of these songs are good, and many of them are completely unlike anything I've ever heard him do before. ...But I inevitably held back, because there are a few too many draggy bits for my taste. With that said, everyone who had been a Neil Young fan for ages, must hear Le Noise. You will like it. I give you my word as a former Boy Scout. (The goofy album title, by the way, is a pun on the name of the producer, Daniel Lanois. Most reviews I've read of this album begin with this factoid, but I decided to end with it, because I'm cool like that.)

Track Reviews:

Walk With Me A
I've got to say... I almost didn't think this would happen, but... I find Neil Young's ultra-distorted electric guitar entertaining again. How did he do it? He treats it basically like an acoustic guitar. There's none of that horrid helicopter noise to rattle by brain, and he doesn't use tones that are too screechy. Though there is a point toward the end where he launches into a sequence of echoey instrumental sound effects, which I don't find terribly interesting... But until that point, all he's doing is chugging along with that HUGE electric guitar, and singing surprisingly a rather catchy ditty. Reading these lyrics, I've gotta wonder, though, if he thinks he's a divine power or something. (“I feel a strength, I feel your faith in me / I'll never let you down, no matter what you do / If you just walk with me and let me walk with you / I'm on this journey, I don't wanna walk alone.”) ...But then again, I suppose if Jesus were to compose a rock album, it might sound something like that. That guitar sound is epic, for sure.

Sign of Love A-
Much the same as the previous song, as a matter of fact, except without that somewhat dull instrumental interlude at the end. Young is chugging away at that MIGHTILY heavy electric guitar while singing a melody that's far catchier than it has any right to be. If he were to perform this with just an acoustic guitar, I doubt he would need to strum that guitar much differently. ...There is a very neat echo effect put on Young's vocals, which makes it sound like he's singing to the universe.

Someone's Gonna Rescue You B
...OK, the gradually degrading song scores are probably evident that Young's gimmick of playing that HEAVY electric guitar is losing its novelty for me...... But I promise you that the songs are getting gradually less interesting. Here the vocal melody is a little bit boring, and he's not finding terribly interesting patterns to play with that guitar. ...In the opening song, there was actually a second guitar providing some extra texture. But here, he's just playing one extremely distorted guitar and singing over it. Nothing too notable in the riff category, either.

Love and War A
Yay! He gives the distorted guitar a break for a bit, and strums with a normal acoustic guitar for a bit. ...And wow this song is beautiful. ...It's moody and sad, but it's still something I find myself getting easily drawn into. Though I'm almost positive I heard that melody somewhere else. (It'd take me too long to figure it out... Shoot me an e-mail if you catch what I'm thinking of...) Again, I only hear one guitar playing on this, but he finds plenty of different musical ideas to keep me consistently with him. ( “I've seen a lot of young men go to war / And leave a lot of young brides waiting / I've watched them try to explain it to their kids / And seen a lot of them failing.”)

Angry World B+
Back to the distorted guitar! ...Still a cool sound, but after the previous song, all I really want to hear him do is play more of that acoustic guitar. But then again, this song is about the “Angry World,” which calls for a little bit of snarling electric guitar. In fact, it's rougher and more snarling than I've heard it before on this album... It starts to approach unlistenable territory, but never quite makes it. Maybe he went a bit too far for my tastes, but still the melody is pretty good. ...All throughout, I hear this extremely eerie sample of Young's voice being repeated over and over again. …It sounds like it's repeating “Hate me” or “He ate me.” ...Either way, it's pretty freaky. And I suppose I should give Young credit—after all these albums—for writing a song completely unlike anything I've heard him do before.

Hitchhiker A-
Wow... I guess as long as he was going to use this heavy guitar sound, he's finding appropriate subject matter. Earlier in the album, he sounded like God. In the previous song, it sounded like the angry, collective snarl of every angry person in the world. Here, he's singing about drugs, and I'm guessing that disgusting, grungy guitar sound is exactly what happens in his brain when he is on drugs. (Did Neil Young actually do drugs? ...Gotta assume the affirmative.) My main complaint about this is the melody, which gets awfully repetitive and on my nerves. ...But then again, he's singing about drugs. (“You didn't see me in Toronto when I first tried out some hash / Smoked through a pen and I'd do it again but I didn't have cash / I didn't have the cash / Then I tried amphetamines and my head was in a glass / Taped underneath the speedometer wires of my '48 Buick's dash / But I knew that wouldn't last.”)

Peaceful Valley Boulevard A-
The second and final song on here where Neil Young gives that distorted electric guitar a rest and plays the old acoustic guitar. He's still singing a song that's extremely sullen, gritty and rather depressing. ...But then again, when has Young ever written a song that wasn't depressing? His melodies are still really good, and perhaps this shows him peaking again. ...The only issue I throw with this song is that it lasts more than seven minutes without ever really changing, and it does grow less interesting to me as it goes along. However, it's nevertheless perfectly listenable. It's just Young playing with his acoustic guitar with an echo effect put on his vocals. He's singing about environmentalism, another issue that had been close to his heart forever. (“Who'll be the beacon in the night? / Who'll be the one to lead the nations? / And protect God's creations? / A polar bear's still drifting on an ice floe / Sun beating down from the sky / Politicians gathered for a summit / And came away with nothing to decide.”)

Rumblin' B
Young has one last hurrah with his HEAVILY distorted guitar... although it comes off as very dreary in this instance, and thus all I really do is sit through this mostly tired of it. ...The sound was pretty cool in earlier spots of the album because it seemed like he had a reason to use it. Here, however... eh. The sound isn't particularly gruffy or mean. Though he's singing about something pretty big in the lyrics. (“And the earth is slowly spinning / Spinning slowly, slowly changing / I feel something in the air.”)

Concluding Remarks:

Neil Young's latest greatest marks a return to that HEAVILY distorted electric guitar sound that he had explored at length in the early '90s. Some of these songs are really cool, though.

Read more Neil Young reviews by Starcollector!

Neil Young (1969) | Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (1969) | After the Gold Rush (1970) | Harvest (1972) | On the Beach (1974) | Tonight's the Night (1975) | Zuma (1975) | American Stars 'N Bars (1977) | Comes a Time (1978) | Rust Never Sleeps (1979) | Live Rust (1979) | Hawks & Doves (1980) | Re-ac-tor (1981) | Trans (1982) | Everybody's Rockin' (1983) | Old Ways (1985) | Landing On Water (1986) | Life (1987) | This Note's For You (1988) | Freedom (1989) | Ragged Glory (1990) | Weld (1991) | Arc (1991) | Harvest Moon (1992) | Unplugged (1993) | Sleeps With Angels (1994) | Mirror Ball (1995) | Dead Man (1996) | Broken Arrow (1996) | Year of the Horse (1997) | Silver & Gold (2000) | Rock Road Vol. 1 (2000) | Are You Passionate? (2002) | Greendale (2003) | Prairie Wind (2005) | Living With War (2006) | Chrome Dreams II (2007) | Fork in the Road (2009) | Le Noise (2010)

Recommended: Yes