Weld Album Review
by Don McLeese
Though Neil Young refers to it as his garage band, Crazy Horse operates best on the open road, where it can take songs out of the studio, open 'em up, let 'em rip. For anyone who thought Young and the band drove feedback to its outer limits on last year's Ragged Glory, Weld opens new dimensions of sonic turbulence.
Sure, this double concert album is something of a redundancy - with most of the material coming from Ragged Glory, it's predecessor Freedom and the predictable concert staples - but it's a glorious redundancy nonetheless. While "Crime in the City" pulled some punches in the studio, the live version is ferociously definitive. If "Welfare Mothers" once seemed like a goof, it's now a savage assault - black humor from the economic underbelly. Expanded beyond thirteen minutes, "Like a Hurricane" swirls to an otherworldly climax. (Want to go even further? The album is also available as a limited-edition, three-CD Arc-Weld set, with the Arc disc consisting of thirty-five minute, feedback-laden sound collage.)
Rather than the escapist fare of so many concert spectacles, Weld offers tough music for tough times. "Blowin' in the Wind" recalls the agony of Desert Storm, which was raging during Young's tour, and "Rockin' in the Free World" sounds even more prophetic than it did on Freedom. Crazy Horse was once reserved for Young's brutally basic music, but "Mansion on the Hill" finds the band a match for some of his most thoughtful songcraft. The sonic barrages of Young and second guitarist Frank Sampedro over the rhythmic bedrock of drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Billy Talbot offer a pulverizing purity, a catharsis that makes the plaintive emotion of "Love and Only Love" seem all the more delicate.
Not all the material renews itself in concert. Expanded to more than eight minutes, "Tonight's the Night," once a taut tragedy, moves toward turgid melodrama. And though "Cinnamon Girl" remains a live favorite, by this point it's way too familiar to warrant inclusion. As a re-creation of the Neil Young concert experience, Weld is weakened by its lack of the sort of surprises that invariably marked the tours before Ragged Glory. Still, Young has followed this swing of the pendulum about as far as it can go, which suggests that the surprises will come next time.