Neil Young released his newest album today entitled “Fork in the Road”. This is his 33rd solo album (not including live albums, greatest hits, compelations, or ARC) that goes along with his 3 Buffalo Springfield albums, and the 3 albums he made as member of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.  For those keeping track at home that is 39 albums in 43 years of recording. A man that is this prolific of a musician has to have his ups and downs, and unfortunately “Fork in the Road” is one of the worst he has put out in quite some time.

Even on Neil’s lesser albums he released in the 80’s there were usually some gems to be found. After all it was still Neil Young and he still had a way of writing earnest lyrics even when he was playing in a pink suit, being accompanied by a brass band, or strumming a country tune. One could even say his last two efforts Chrome Dreams II and Living With War were mildly disappointing, but they contained moments that I enjoyed greatly. Fork in the Road though is the exception as it suffers from the worst fate any album can and that is sounding uninspired.

Neil is one who when he gets an idea in his head he has to do it. Over the years that is what has made him who he is. He never deviates from following his muse, but what happens when the muse is driving him down a bland road?  Today we found out that ”Fork in the Road” is what happens. You see the album is about Neil’s long time obsession with Cars. Driving cars, building cars, making cars green you name it and Neil is all about it. This album is his bluesy attempt to glamorize that love. The concept itself is not a bad one. You can look to his past with “Long May You Run” to see he can write very compelling songs about cars, but there is not a song on this album that comes close to being as good as the aforementioned car tune.

I can hear glimpses of the Neil I love on this album. I can tell he has not “lost it”  for good like some others, but he needs to real it back in. Some of the guitar work by Neil on the album is very good. He is going for a nice bluesy garage rock jam. It is upbeat and  has some promise but almost every song that shows that glimmer of promise sounds like it is unpolished at best. The album lacks inspiration. They sound like songs Neil wrote in his sleep without even trying. He does not seem inspired  or perhaps challenged to put more effort into the work and flesh them out. His backing band of friends that he has been playing with on the past few albums seem reluctant to rock the boat and push him. They are always in the background just laying a smooth rhythm for Neil to follow. They all sound fine but none of them stand out. The lyrics are even weaker here then the music. It seems like Neil had two or three decent ideas and he decided come hell or high water he was going to write ten songs about cars and make an album of it.

Neil’s been in ruts before and generally how he got out of them or how he prevented them from happening was playing with vibrant musicians who would at least challenge the creative spirit that is within him to come out to the forefront. Here he doesn’t seem challenged at all and the music suffers from that. 

I really can’t see myself coming back to this album much in the future. There are a few songs that are at least decent. Songs like “Just Singing a Song”, “Light a Candle,” and “Fork in the Road” seem to be the strongest of the group.

Perhaps this is Neil’s “Fork in the Road”. Will he hook up with other musicians that will push him forward? He did play with the Drive By Truckers on the upcoming Booker T Album. Maybe they will ignite a spark in him? Perhaps a solo acoustic album would force him to work harder? The one song on “Fork in the Road” that holds that solo acoustic feel Light a Candle” stands out as one of the better tracks. I would enjoy hearing him do some more songs in that vein. Of course he could stay the safe course and record the next album with his friends again. Only time will tell and I’m reluctant to criticize the man too much because he has shown he is very capable of coming out of periods of lesser music only to put out some of his most sensational records of his career (Ragged Glory).

I would really only recomend this album to die hard Neil Young fans. For the rest keep on truckin down the highway and avoid the this exit.

If you would like to check some of it out Neil does have a very interesting way to preview the music. He recorded a film of him  singing the new songs while driving around in his LincVolt pictured below:

That is a 1959 Lincoln Continental that was converted to run on earth friendly fuels. Feel free to click here to check out the preview of the movie.

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