Pitchfork

Four dead in O-hi-o. Southern man, when will you pay them back? A kinder, gentler machine gun hand. Like many musicians of his generation, Neil Young has never shied away from political statements. However, his views haven't always been easy to pigeonhole as left-leaning, complicated as they are by Nixon-empathy ("Campaigner"), his early-80s support for Reagan, and most recently, his ill-advised United 93 quickie tribute "Let's Roll" (not as lingeringly embarrassing as Paul McCartney's "Freedom", but a stumble nonetheless).

These mercurial politics have a lot to do with Young's impulsive nature; as his manager Elliot Roberts put it in Jimmy McDonough's biography Shakey, "If he watches TV on the road and there's a CNN special on Bosnia, Neil wants do a record and a benefit within two days." With his attention now directed toward the current Bush administration and Iraq war, that M.O. hasn't changed; in fact, the internet's greased distribution wheels have fueled it, allowing Living With War to travel from studio to stream to stores in roughly a month's time.

This fast-track approach has both advantages and drawbacks. Lyrically, Living With War captures all the indignant ferocity and off-the-cuff logic of a blog-post screed: calls for impeachment, "Mission Accomplished" mockery, etc. Obviously, Young's not dishing out well-measured, footnoted policy analysis here, but neither is he bothering with metaphor or subtlety-- it's all direct, literal, and viscerally emotional. It's a bold move: Shooting from the hip opens Young up to a whole list of easy talking-point criticisms ("oh my god, he was born in Canada!"), and the proper-name references almost guarantee a brief shelf life.

But from a musical perspective, Living With War's short gestation benefits Young's performance, inspiring him to make his loudest, rawest release of new material since at least Ragged Glory, maybe even Rust Never Sleeps. With his guitar re-tuned to its characteristic distorted snarl, and the clearly live mix preserving bum notes and sloppy harmonica or trumpet solos, Young returns to the spontaneous recording style of albums like Tonight's the Night that best suits his talents. Coming hot on the heels of the contemplative Prairie Wind, the serrated guitar of "After the Garden" and "Restless Consumer" quickly puts to rest any notion that post-aneurysm, sixty-something Neil was going to slip quietly into retirement.

The album's most effective political statement-- the decision to use a 100-strong choir for backing vocals-- has little to do with the lyrics. As unrehearsed as the main instruments, the choir is used not for pretentious ends, but as a way to turn every song into a mass protest, with Young's distinctive howl falling back into the mix behind the wall of voices on the title track or the centerpiece "Let's Impeach the President". Ironically, preaching to the choir with a choir saves Young's complaints about cable news, photo-ops, and pharmaceutical ads from succumbing to faded-hippie fogeyism.

Alongside Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Living With War is the second album this spring on which an elder rock statesman makes an effective protest record with a raucously communal approach, reverently covering historically heavy anthems along the way ("America the Beautiful", in this case). As a political statement, however, Young's record may be more fleeting, with its topical references to steroids and New Orleans. But despite the press releases, the impulsive politics of Living With War are almost incidental to its success, mere fuel for Neil Young to return to the vicious sound he's neglected in recent times.