{"id":853013,"date":"2026-09-19T07:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T07:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/853013\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T07:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T07:52:10","slug":"neil-young-the-chrome-hearts-second-song-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/853013\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Young \/ The Chrome Hearts: Second Song Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second Song is an act of hypnosis. For all of Neil Young<\/a>\u2019s enduring and endlessly regenerative influence, that power is what nobody can touch. Imitate his moody, mewing Canadian whine; adopt his verit\u00e9 approach to studio recording; tune your acoustic guitar to drop-D and overdrive your electric through a vintage amp; rip a solo that\u2019s just one note and dig into the fretboard as if a weaker player handed you their instrument to help wear in the neck. But who else can conjure this kind of grainy, autumnal dream state with such effortlessness and patience, using such spare tools? For the first time since 2012\u2019s louder and gnarlier Psychedelic Pill<\/a>, Young spends his 50th studio album luxuriating in this gift, casting a glow of bittersweet contentment that feels distinct in his catalog.<\/p>\n

You could be forgiven for keeping your expectations low. These days, the 80-year-old songwriter\u2019s attention seems largely dominated by his Archives project\u2014the type of comprehensive legacy curation that tends to be handed off entirely to the label but which Young has continued to operate in a charmingly messy state of constant, unpredictable motion. Along the way, his new records, more than ever, seem to exist mainly to document passing obsessions, feelings, and company. From a trio of understated Crazy Horse<\/a> reunion records between 2019 and 2022 to last year\u2019s wispy and unsteady Talkin to the Trees\u2014the debut of his new backing band, the Chrome Hearts<\/a>\u2014these statements are always welcome but rarely essential.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Upon entering the studio earlier this year, even Young wasn\u2019t sure about his latest crop of material, confessing to Archives subscribers that he \u201cran out of tunes fast.\u201d Really, he just had five songs\u2014and \u201csongs\u201d might even be stretching it. These were slow, formless meditations, several hovering around the 10-minute mark, ambling along to breezy, familiar chord changes on acoustic guitar and piano. The title track felt like a stretched-out jam on the ascending progression from his eternal \u201cHarvest Moon\u201d; another sounded a little like Mazzy Starr<\/a>\u2019s \u201cFade Into You.\u201d And so, Young padded out the record with new renditions of \u201cCasting Me Away From You\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll Love You Forever,\u201d two early rarities that had yet to appear on a studio album (although both appeared on 2009\u2019s Archives Vol. 1<\/a> box set). Together, they lighten up the B-side of the record with sweet, Beatlesque love songs: nascent tunes written by a young singer-songwriter in the mid \u201960s, finding his voice in a crowded industry.<\/p>\n

Here, they serve a different purpose. For one thing, they are reminders of the melodic dexterity that once defined Young\u2019s songwriting but has since been replaced with a first-thought-best-thought folk simplicity. (Two tracks on Talkin to the Trees borrowed the melody from \u201cThis Land Is Your Land.\u201d) There\u2019s another thing that\u2019s hard to replicate: While \u201cCasting Me Away From You\u201d might feel like a pop standard, notice the way the rhythm shifts briefly, allowing the turn of \u201cNow I find\/You\u2019re leaving me behind\u201d to form its own mini-refrain within the chorus. On Talkin to the Trees, you got the sense the Chrome Hearts were hearing the songs for the first time as Neil counted off; now, you can sense his bandmates listening, cautiously finding their way and navigating each turn with a fragility that suits the material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second Song is an act of hypnosis. For all of Neil Young\u2019s enduring and endlessly regenerative influence, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[776,88,777],"class_list":["post-853013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}