Neil Young with Crazy Horse,
"Broken Arrow" (Reprise)

By MARK ATHITAKIS at 50 years old, Neil Young has watched the best artists of his generation -- and the ones that followed -- fall into decline. The story of Johnny Rotten and many others isn't a pretty one, now; it rides a wave of overcooked nostalgia and corporate sponsorships. As others' box sets are compiled and reunion tours are planned, Young doesn't even take his own advice. Refusing to either burn out or fade away, he simply puts out albums, following his muse and retaining his integrity. How? By ignoring the myth that a great run in rock music means rebellious youth followed by a late career of royalty checks and sensitivity moves. His most delicate, introspective work came early -- culminating in 1972's "Harvest" -- and his recent work with Crazy Horse violently confronts volume and feedback, resulting in some of his finest moments: 1989's "Freedom" and the next year's "Ragged Glory" are raging, intense works, but beautiful all the while. Just as important, they're marked by an adamant refusal to dwell on past glories. They're borne out of modesty as much as noise. "Broken Arrow," by contrast, has a warm, retrospective feel throughout. Borrowing its title from Young's 1967 Buffalo Springfield song and featuring a lengthy lo-fi cover of Jimmy Reed's 1960 blues hit "Baby What You Want Me to Do," the album is lyrically and musically drenched in familiar styles. But Young's nostalgia is far from lazy -- his command of both noise-blooze jams and winsome ballads is still strong, even if it can't compete with his finest moments. "Broken Arrow" is loose and diverse and feels relaxed. Everyone else is resting on their laurels; why not him? But Young's idea of taking it easy is different from most. "Broken Arrow" launches with three seven-plus-minute jams caught somewhere between the menace of "Cortez the Killer" and the blistering rage of "Rockin' in the Free World." On "Loose Change," the martial rumble of Billy Talbot's bass and Ralph Molina's drums provides the backdrop while Young and Poncho Sampedro slash guitar notes against each other like swords. Unlike Pearl Jam's somewhat stilted backup work on last year's "Mirror Ball," Crazy Horse gives Young's longer tunes a feeling of high drama, if not raw panic. They'll probably never surpass the sense of wasted chill they provided on 1975's "Tonight's the Night," but they seem to know that the stakes aren't quite so high this time -- where earlier epics like "Cowgirl in the Sand" mastered the slow burn, a song like "Slip Away" lets the feedback do most of the work, offering an ethereal drone instead of a manifesto. Crazy Horse is one of the few bands who can play three songs in 25 minutes without sounding bloated, but the sense of consequence that pervaded their earlier work is lost. Young regains some of his focus on the second half of the album; avoiding the need to make Grand Statements, shorter songs like "Changing Highways" and "This Town" are more upbeat and playful, easing into their blues-pop shuffles and high-lonesome choruses. The plaintive, shopworn quality in Young's voice matches "This Town's" plea for a chance "to sleep around and kiss the hours away." But it's on "Music Arcade," the sole acoustic song, that Young offers the album's most heartfelt and touching moment. Sleepily recounting a day of adult hooky-playing ("Took a spin in the laundromat/ Played a game in the music arcade"), his voice slowly creeps to a whisper, singing as if he were writing his epitaph by way of a lullaby: "I didn't really mean to stay as long as I have/ so I'll be moving on." The scary part is he sounds like he means it. After nearly 30 years of playing music, of innovating and experimenting, he's surely earned the right to hang up his guitar and walk away. At a time when his peers seem to have found an easy way out, it would come as no surprise. More likely, though, is that the sense of repose "Broken Arrow" offers isn't an end to his career, but a transition, a moment's rest for a man we rarely expect to take one. His next revolution -- his next renaissance -- might be just around the corner. That's the thing about Neil Young. You never know. Mark Athitakis is a contributor to Mother Jones magazine. He lives in San Francisco.

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