Storytone
arrived at the end of a year that already saw another new
Neil Young
album -- that would be
A Letter Home
, a collection of folk covers recorded at
Jack White
's Voice-O-Graph direct-to-vinyl recording booth at
Third Man Records
-- which itself was only the tip of the iceberg that was
Neil
's 2014. That spring,
Young
launched a high-end digital audio system called Pono, which was followed by the summer news that he was divorcing
Pegi
, his wife of 36 years, an event that led to a fresh feud with
David Crosby
that then led to
saying he would never play with
CSN
again and, if that weren't enough,
also published his second book, Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars, just prior to the release of
. That'd be enough to sustain a few years for most artists but we all know perfectly well that
isn't like most artists. He thrives on this kind of chaos and, appropriately enough,
is fairly messy -- which is quite an achievement for an album recorded in large part live in front of a full orchestra.
does indeed croon over those strings, often rhapsodizing about the powers of new love or pleading to save the Earth, although he sometimes gets restless and rolls out a swinging big band. This means
sometimes plays like a hybrid of
Harvest
at its most florid and the bloozy swagger of
This Note's for You
-- a curious combination that doesn't seem quite as extreme on the album's second disc, which houses nothing but solo renditions of the record's ten tunes, but the very fact that there's a reverse image of the album strengthens the impression that
isn't much in the mood to keep things simple. Which is odd, because all the original songs here are relatively simple, built to withstand simple arrangements -- they sound fine when
supports himself with no more than a guitar, piano, or ukulele -- and they don't buckle underneath the weight of an orchestra. Versatile they may be, but they're united by
's aching sincerity. He's earnest whether he's taking a stance against fracking, romanticizing his old car, or singing about new love with the dewiness of a teenager. The open-heartedness is sweet if somewhat adolescent, a feeling not helped by the preponderance of 2014 headlines about
's love life, but even without that tabloid gunk, songs like "Glimmer" have an optimism that sounds just a shade disarming coming from a former cynic facing 70. But that's one of the glorious things about
: he surprises and by delivering this big, sloppy valentine to everything he is and everything he loves, he's not being neat but he is true to himself. [A Deluxe Edition added a second disc of solo versions of all the tracks.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine