Neil Young
Le Noise

Only those who don't know Neil Young deeply can be surprised by this new album. For over 40 years, the lanky figure who came down to California from the Canadian fog has been releasing diverse records that can be placed in the most varied musical genres. From Buffalo Springfield to the successful but short-lived collaboration with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, to his groundbreaking solo milestones, Young has delved everywhere: in the folk-rock of his beginnings and "Deja Vu", in the country-rock of "Harvest", "Comes A Time" and "Harvest Moon", in the pure country of "Nashville" and "Old Ways", in the depths of inner darkness with "On The Beach" and "Tonight's The Night", in the punk metal of "Re-Ac-Tor", in the rockabilly of "Everybody's Rockin'", in the electronic sounds of "Trans", in the rhythm and blues of "This Note's For You", in the pirate feedback of "Arc", in the grunge of "Mirror Ball" and more, with ups and downs. Even though the masterpieces remain "After The Gold Rush", "Zuma", "Harvest" and "Rust Never Sleeps", whether we talk about the Neil Young of the hippie dream or the more politicized one or the experimental one, it is undeniable that his influence is everywhere: not surprisingly, he was one of the few "old-timers" to be saved by the punk revolution of 1977, and not by chance he is considered the father of grunge.

And still, he manages to surprise everyone with the rhythm of an album a year. This time he relies on the production of Daniel Lanois (U2 and Bob Dylan among others), with whose last name he plays in the title, "Il Rumore", and noise it is when he delivers a breathless sequence of 9 songs with just a voice loaded with echo and electric guitar filtered, distorted and lost in reverb, for an album that from the very first ominous chord of "Walk With Me" promises sparks. Among the piercing sounds of "It's An Angry World" and "Hitchhiker", the nightmares of "Sign Of Love" and the nostalgia of "Love And War", there is no time to get bored.

After all, he has always been the Solitary one par excellence (who remembers "The Loner"?), even daring to describe unambiguously in the epic "Thrasher" the abandonment of his close friends, Crosby, Stills, and Nash: "I got bored and left them there, They were just deadweight to me Better down the road without that load" ("Mi stancai e li abbandonai, erano solo dei pesi morti per me, e sulla strada era meglio da soli che con quel carico"). Unmatched.