Le Noise

This album's immense pre-release buzz circled around two key points: French-Canadian superproducer Daniel Lanois helmed the sessions (hence the goofy pun of the title) and it's a solo album. As in, all nine songs feature nothing but Neil Young and his guitar, albeit so heavily processed that at points the album feels as chaotic as Crazy Horse at their wildest. The novel sonic colors of the album are unquestionably wicked cool, but at its heart, Le Noise is one of the most direct and intimate records in Young's immense catalogue. Indeed, the most startling moment on the entire album comes at the heart of centerpiece track "Angry World," when the swirling effects and choppy central riff drop out entirely as Young wails "But no doubt everything will go as planned," the bone-dry cynicism in his voice made all the more lacerating by how casually he sings it. Earlier, in the album opener "Walk With Me," Young sings "I lost some people I was traveling with / I miss the soul and the old friendship," an apparent reference to the recent deaths of his longtime creative partners Ben Keith and Larry "L.A." Johnson, and both the openly autobiographical "Hitchhiker" and "Love and War" make passing reference to his early days on Toronto's 1960s folk scene. But no matter how reflective and nostalgic the overall mood of Le Noise is, its heaviness is buoyed by the playful experimentalism and creativity of its sound.