CD Odyssey Disc 1610: Maire Brennan

For those of you wondering if I will be posting a list of my Top 10 albums of 2022 this year, fear not – I will be doing exactly that. I am still working through the 80 or so good albums I listened to this year to make the list.

While we wait, here’s a review of an album released way back in 1992 that in no way whatsoever would have made a top 10 list for any year.

Disc 1610 is…Maire

Artist: Maire Brennan

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  Yech. A gratuitous “look at my baby” picture. I’m sure this is designed to look touching, but I can’t help but wonder if this baby about to bite Maire’s face like some kind of infant vampire.

How I Came To Know It: In the early nineties I was heavily into Celtic folk music. Capercaillie, Clannad and Enya were some of my favourites, but I often scoured the folk and “world” section of the CD store simply looking for songs with Gaelic titles, since I liked the sound of Gaelic.

I had never heard of this record, but it ticked a couple of boxes. First, I knew Maire Brennan (also called Moya) was in Clannad, who I already liked, and second, three of the song listings featured Gaelic. So, despite the disturbing baby photo on the cover, I gave it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: Brennan has over ten records spanning thirty years, but I only have this one. I have a couple Clannad albums with her singing, but I don’t count those.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Maire” is a sleepy album that is suitable for background music if you are shopping for a gift in a curio shop, and not much else. I used to listen to this album back in the early nineties to help me fall asleep. Revisiting it I can see why. Apart from one or two tracks, it is composed of unremarkable, soporific treacle.

The nineties were not known for their production values, but on “Maire” Maire Brennan takes the overly soft, fuzzed out sound to all new lows. Think the musical equivalent of smearing Vaseline on a camera in old movies. It hides defects and makes everything look like a dream. A very boring dream. Brennan’s sister, Enya, takes layered sound and makes it feel otherworldly and fey. On Maire it just strips away any emotional quality to the music.

This is unfortunate, because Brennan (who was one of the lead vocalists for Clannad in their golden days) has a voice that would put a Middle Earth elf maiden to shame. It is feathery and mysterious and has the ability to carry and fill space like a coastal mist, refreshing and beautiful. I love Maire Brennan’s voice, which is why it is so disappointing to have it buried or diffused on so many of these songs.

There are occasions where she lets it shine, most notably on “Oro” a stripped-down tune that showcases her in a way that is sublime. Here there are some layered choral moments, combined with light percussion and production that lets the lead vocal fill in the space. It is everything I liked about this kind of music at the time. “Oro” doesn’t lift your spirit, so much as it encourages it to drift off on a thermal; free and relaxed.

Unfortunately, too often the songs are instead schmalzy and unimaginative. Done well, folk music should feel timeless, but on “Maire they just feel dated. Even songs designed to be topical, such as the environmentally minded, “Voices of the Land,” are awash in excess production. The backing chorus sounds like a children’s choir and was about as welcome as the vampire baby on the cover. Give me a hard-hitting environmental tune like Capercaillie’s “Black Fields” any day over this stuff.

I am probably more critical of this record than it deserves, fueled in part because I can hear Brenan’s voice cutting through in places and it breaks my heart that it doesn’t happen more often. There is genuine pathos in there, but the songs are presented like they’re part of some interminable family Christmas special. I need more from my music experiences than just a well-voiced tune sung while standing stately by a piano.

After I was done with this record, I looked it up to see if it was rare and valuable. It is not, but that just means that instead of selling it, I’ll give it away. In no scenario will I be keeping it. In fact, I’ve already used that space available in the “B” section of my shelving to file my recently obtained copy of Boogie Down Productions’ “By All Means Necessary.” I still like this era of Celtic music, but I don’t keep records on the shelf just because they happen to have a few words in a cool language on them. Later, Maire.

Best tracks: Oro, Land of Youth (Tir na nOg)

CD Odyssey Disc 1609: MUNA

What is this, the second review in as many days? How is this possible, you say? Have I abandoned all responsibility and duty to Rules 1, 3 and 5?

I can assure you, I have not. Turns out a snowstorm provides plenty of opportunity for walking around, and that walking around tends to take a lot longer, on account of so many people not shoveling their sidewalks. This makes for premium music-listening time, along with the bonus of headphones keeping my ears warm.

So here you go, another review before 2022 leaves us behind, and we enter the (likely cold) embrace of 2023.

Disc 1609 is…Self-Titled

Artist: MUNA

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Meet the band! Or at least I assume this is the band. That Jack White gaffe from a couple of reviews ago has me nervous…

How I Came To Know It: I read a review, and decided to check them out. This is the usual way I discover music, so apologies if it feels repetitive.

How It Stacks Up: I only have this one MUNA album, so no stacking possible.

Ratings: 3 stars

MUNA’s self-titled third album should have a different name. Bands that fail to name their first album eponymously have missed their window forever. However, once I got past this particular pet peeve and settled in for a listen, I liked what I heard.

MUNA is an all-woman trio that perform pop music and are very good at it. Lead singer Katie Gavin has a pretty voice and while she doesn’t blow the doors off, she has a likeable tone that is easy on the ears and well-suited to the style. These songs are pure pop, and demand the reliable sweetness that Gavin provides, even if the lyrics and structure have just a hint of indie spice about them.

These songs have production well suited for the radio, but I have no idea if they get played there. I hope so, because the songwriting is heartfelt and true to itself and the radio could use more of that. I assume.

As for topics, these feel like “adventurous older sister” songs. I’ve never had an older sister, but I imagine these are the sorts of stories she’d have shared with me if I had. Basically a mix of party music and the joy of self-discovery.

On the let’s party front, “What I Want” is a worthy entry in the genre. It is a song about drinking too much, putting unknown drugs in your mouth, dancing your ass off and lusting for the girl in leather across the bar. It is a night out with the kind of recklessness reserved for youth (I should have noted I imagine this older sister character to be in her twenties, not someone actually older than me…).

“Silk Chiffon” has the sort of specific, poetic approach to its lyrics that initially had me favourably comparing it to the Tragically Hip (it might have just been the opening line of “Sundown and I'm feeling lifted” making me think of the start of “Wheat Kings”). In any event, the song quickly takes a tight pop turn that the Hip would not follow. This song is like its title: airy and romantic. It is dappled sunlight, a light breeze, and a bit of summer love.

On the raunchier side of romance, “No Idea” employs a low club-type thump that oozes sex, even as the lyrics admit to a desire lurking just below the surface of all that innocent-looking romance of the earlier “Silk Chiffon.”

MUNA can also be delightfully nasty. The opening lines of “Anything but Me” uses a matter-of-fact delivery to a deliver a diss that always puts a smile on my face:

“You're gonna say that I'm on a high horse
I think that my horse is regular-sized
Did you ever think maybe
You're on a pony
Going in circles on a carousel ride?”

Nice.

The music on the record does not break any new ground, and while it is all solid, I didn’t often feel drawn deeply in. The closes I came was with “Kind of Girl” which is a Katie Pruitt style confessional. It features a young woman growing comfortable into herself, while also aware that time will continue to change her.

Overall, MUNA is a good record and worth a listen. If you don’t like pop music, then you might find the song construction a bit boring, but who doesn’t like pop music if it is done well? What kind of monster are you?

Best tracks: Silk Chiffon, What I Want, Kind of Girl, Anything But Me, No Idea

CD Odyssey Disc 1608: Miya Folick

Reflecting back it has been a hard year, laden with more than a typical share of triumph, tragedy, and toil. As a result I’m a little tired, although that could be slogging through two feet of snow for the last two days. Whatever the reason, I need a break and as it happens here I sit, with the day off! Huzzah.

In other news, it has come to my attention that I mistook the woman on the cover of “Entering Heaven Alive” as Jack White. Er…oops. Apologies to both Jack and the model in question.

Disc 1608 is…Premonitions

Artist: Miya Folick

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover supreme! This is a tilted Giant Head Cover, which is much less common. Also, there are two other heads attempting to horn in, but Miya Folick’s Head is simply too Giant to allow this!

How I Came To Know It: I read a review and decided to check it out. I couldn’t get this one on physical media so I ordered it as a download from Bandcamp instead, which worked just fine. Not my preferred approach to music collection, but more and more a requirement until the world comes out of its stupor and realizes that Compact Disc is a perfectly acceptable way to collect music.

How It Stacks Up: I am on the lookout for Folick’s EP released earlier this year called “2007” but for now, “Premonitions” is the only album in my collection. Consequently, it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

For a record with so many layers of production and sonic swell, “Premonitions” is surprisingly intimate. This is a record that will make you idly sway if you were to hear it in a lineup of a coffee shop (which you won’t, because radio airplay decisions are based on accessibility, not merit). If you are lucky enough to spend a few days with it on your headphones as I just did it will fill you with an ocean swell of emotion and yearning.

Things begin with Miya Folick’s incredible vocals. She has the mysterious lounge-singer tones of k d lang on “Ingénue” combined with the atmospheric techno-siren sound of London Grammar’s Hannah Reid. This is high praise, but well-deserved. Folick has a ton of power and range, but she’s also able to shift from an ethereal head voice to a lower fine-grain sandpaper in her lower register.

Sometimes when you get this much shift in vocal performance it can make a record feel disjointed, but that never happens on “Premonitions”. Part of this is the production and arrangement, which is a primarily pop music vibe, with a soupcon of jazz dance. This sounds terrible to me reading it back, but it is done so well it overcomes my usual reticence for such forms.

More important than the production is Folick’s songwriting. Collaborating with afore-referenced producer Justin Raisen, these tunes pull the light production into dark and intensely personal places. The songs feature plenty of power dynamics – sexual and otherwise – and beneath that much more intimate explorations of self-discovery and triumph.

The record opens with “Thingamajig”, a heartfelt apology that mixes a lighthearted looping of background vocals going “uh uh uh – hay-o” with some of the rawest, most sublime lead vocals you will ever hear. Folick’s apology and surrender so abject it borders on self-hate.

Fortunately the rest of the record contextualizes this song, demonstrating that Folick may be raw at the edges but is very much OK with herself, thank you very much. “Premonitions” encourages a strength in her partner not from a position of surrender, but because the likes to be challenged.

“Stock Image” explores the thin veneer of self-assurance we present the world to hide our doubts and fears. Or as Folick puts it:

“Colour in, colour in
Feeling empty outside of your outline
You scratch at the door of the divine
Within, colour in
You can't stand the greatness of sunshine
You hide in the bones of a stock image”

This reads cold and empty but paired with her voice peeling out in triumph you will here the strength of the song bursting out. Or as she reminds us elsewhere in the tune:

“Don't you get too far from yourself
You're so hard on yourself
Oh, you'll get through
Only hard when you say it's too hard”

That last line is a powerful reminder that how you see the problem is a big part of successfully solving it.

The album came out in 2018, in the birth of the “Me Too” movement and on “Deadbody” Folick sets her sights squarely on those who would abuse their privilege to make it clear their time is over. Folick vibrates with rage and power as she finds her inner rock goddess singing the refrain, “over my dead body”.

“Premonitions” would be a beautiful pop record even if it didn’t have anything to say. It has jump, bounce and brilliant arrangement and vocal performance. However, it is much deeper than that and well worth a deep dive. It didn’t make my Top 10 of 2018 list but that’s only because…I was wrong. I repent: buy this record.

Best tracks: Thingamajig, Premonitions, Stock Image, Stop Talking, Freak Out, Deadbody

CD Odyssey Disc 1607: Jack White

Greetings, gentle reader. I have the day off today, but I spent most of it doing chores and Christmas shopping. With the time left I’m going to write this review!

Disc 1607 is…Entering Heaven Alive

Artist: Jack White

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Jack White, dressed in some kind of smock/headband ensemble, leans into the stream of white light, presumably to “enter heaven alive”. Personally, I think entering heaven alive would be quite painful, to say nothing of how you’d manage to keep your corporeal self from falling through the cloud cover as soon as you got there.

How I Came To Know It: I am a fan of a lot of Jack White’s work, so I typically give his new releases a spin. It doesn’t always work out. He’s released five solo albums and while I’ve heard them all, only three of them were good enough to purchase. White released two albums in 2022; this one and “Fear of the Dawn” but only this one measured up.

How It Stacks Up: As you may have already surmised from the previous paragraph, I have three Jack White albums. Of those three, “Entering Heaven Alive” is…last. Someone has to be last.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

Jack White is to rock and roll what Quentin Tarantino is to classic film; both are students and curators of their medium’s themes and evolution across multiple generations. Both sometimes let their enthusiasm for form overshadow emotional resonance, and both are so good at it that you tend to forgive them anyway.

For Tarantino, this means you are likely to see classic movie shots and styles, skillfully worked into a modern film. For White it is the same, only with music, and on “Entering Heaven Alive” White seems more focused on this process than ever before.

The biggest influence this time around is the psychedelic folk/rock of the late sixties and early seventies. White has always had an interest in this era, but it feels (or maybe I remember it) as previously driven principally through his guitar. This is still present, but “Entering Heaven Alive” explores a lot more of the organ and strings you were liable to hear in music of that era.

There is a heavy Beatles influence in places, particularly on “Help Me Along” which has a Sargent Pepper feel to it, if Sargent Pepper was kidnapped by a commune-dwelling string quartet.

The guitar is still there. The Mexican-flavoured picking of “All Along the Way” and the Americana folk of “Love is Selfish” set off well against the fuzzed out riff-fest of “I’ve Got You Surrounded.” On the latter you’d like to say great solo, but the song is essentially a collection of various guitar and piano licks. “I’ve Got You Surrounded” has exactly as much plot as the title provides, and not a lick more, but you won’t mind. Just bob your head and enjoy the patchwork quilt of grooves.

This record is sparsely produced (which I like) and it allows White’s vocals to be a greater point of emphasis. He’s always had a sort of emotionally wounded teen kind of vibe to his delivery, and this makes the album range between “moody troubadour” and “overwrought melancholiac”.  The former is fun and we swoon along with the sad songs, even when (lyrically) they say so little. The latter feels more like when you are trapped in the corner of the kitchen with a party guest telling you about his divorce for the third time that night.

And while the record’s lyrics are more a delivery system for all the musical exploration, there are times when you can tell dear old Jack has found a turn of phrase that he likes a little too much. Examples include, “We met in the rain/in a field of burning sugar cane” and “Pass me the bread and the brown sugar cubes/and I’ll butter your toast while you take off your shoes.”

Kill your darlings, Jack.

The album is more about mood pieces and isolated imagery, but a pair of late-appearing gems, “If I Die Tomorrow” and “Please God Don’t Tell Anyone” rise above. Combined, they tell the story of someone fearful of damnation for the things he’s done. Never mind entering heaven alive, these are the tortured thoughts of a man who is fearful of entering at all. The narrator doesn’t plead for clemency, instead exploring the existential dread of a life of ill-deeds, and a few good ones, and the uncertainty of knowing just how these will balance on the scales when time runs out.

The album ends with “Taking Me Back (Gently)” which has a jaunty beat and a shrill saw of a violin bit that made me feel like I was walking between tents at a carnival. Not so much the area with the rides, but rather the area the carnies hang out on their break. Like a lot of the record, the music takes you backward (in this case to turn-of-the-century ragtime). While I admired White’s capacity for bringing yet another musical element into the mix, the song doesn’t quite land after all the hippy dippy folk-rock revival that comes before it.

While overall I liked a lot of songs on this record, something was missing. White’s craft is there, but I didn’t feel emotionally drawn in. Like those Tarantino films, you love the craftsmanship, but you are more aware of how and why you are enjoying it, rather than it just soaking naturally down into the soul.

Best tracks: A Tip From Me To You, Love is Selfish, I’ve Got You Surrounded, A Tree on Fire From Within, If I Die Tomorrow, Please God Don’t Tell Anyone

CD Odyssey Disc 1606: Muddy Waters

My weekend started off in lovely fashion, catching up with some of my oldest friends (most from university days) enjoying a steak dinner a good conversation and a few drinks raised in fellowship.

Disc 1606 is…His Best: 1947-1955

Artist: Muddy Waters

Year of Release: 1997, but with music from 1947-1955

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover returns! Here we have Muddy Waters’ giant head, looking sinister.

That’s a joke for the heraldry nerds.

How I Came To Know It: I had heard of Muddy Waters for years but it wasn’t until my friend Casey put some on for me one evening that I properly turned my attention to his work (Muddy, not Casey). One of the best gifts is the gift of musical discovery so thanks, Casey!

How It Stacks Up: This record is a compilation of music spanning eight years and so, by CD Odyssey rules, can’t stack up.

Ratings: Compilation records don’t get rated, but if they could be this one would be perfect.

There are times on this blog where I struggle with defining an album. Is it indie folk, with a hint of pop? Hard rock edging up on heavy metal? With Muddy Waters there is no confusion. This man is the blues and only the blues. Blues so pure and deep they well up from the soul like a geyser of oil, rich and grimy.

I don’t always get the blues, and I sometimes find it a bit repetitive. Of course, that is part of its charm; kicking your soul down into a groove which is simultaneously celebratory and full of pain. The blues is singing in a storm, dancing at a funeral, and shouting at the moon while lost on a moor.

While my first love of the blues is Howlin’ Wolf, there is no denying Muddy Waters is objectively the pinnacle. That warbling, deep, half-slurred delivery (occasionally punctuated with a falsetto shriek) is about as good a vocal performance as you will ever hear in this world or the next. If you are wondering what song I am referring to here, the answer is “all of them”.

Frequent readers will know I can’t abide a record with more than 14 tracks on it, but this collection of tunes from Waters’ heyday has 20 and just left me wanting more. I wouldn’t cut a single tune off the album. I don’t know enough about his catalogue to judge if these are “His Best” as advertised, but it is hard to imagine there are 20 better ones.

The guitar work on the record is great, and I was equally happy with Muddy (earlier tracks) and Jimmy Rogers (later tracks). They are different, with Muddy playing a bit more spare and Rogers, ironically a bit more “muddy.” Both are great accompaniments to Waters’ vocals.

The thing that surprised me more was how much I enjoyed the other players. Ernest “Big” Crawford on the bass is amazing, and no doubt an inspiration to all kinds of music that followed, first soul and funk and later rap and hip hop. This music centered deep in the heart, with enough oomph to pump its power across generations. I can still hear it echoing today.

The songs sound timeless, as the blues often do, but most are original compositions of Waters, with a few Willie Dixon classics thrown in for good measure, mostly nearer the end of the period. A blues composition is similar to folk song, in that there is an art to staying firmly within the traditions of the music, while at the same time creating something new. When done right, you can’t tell what era it is from, only that it is awesome.

I love Robert Johnson as much as the next guy, but let’s be honest; that tinny thirties production is irksome. Wouldn’t you love to hear blues this good that didn’t sound like they were recorded in a tin can? Enter Muddy Waters, equal to the talent of his predecessor, but with that high-end Chess production that brings you his deep, rounded tone in all its glory. The guitar and bass shake the floorboards, while Waters vocals roil the air with power that is half playful, half menace.

It all adds up to some of the greatest music ever recorded, and it was my privilege to rediscover it in my collection through what was a very lucky random selection indeed. The only downside is that the Odyssey must roll and tumble its way forward leaving this particularly blessed isle behind for now.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1605: Sunflower Bean

For the second time in three reviews I’m parting with an album immediately after reviewing it. This is also the seventh album in the past 22 that has met a similar fate which I think shows I need to be more discerning with what I purchase. Or maybe I’m just on a rough streak.

Disc 1605 is…Headful of Sugar

Artist: Sunflower Bean

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  The band hangs out down by the power station. Lead singer Julia Cumming is in the foreground looking cold, likely on account of those leather shorts she’s wearing.

How I Came To Know It: I really liked the band’s previous album, 2018’s “Twentytwo in Blue” (reviewed back at Disc 1230). Ordinarily I would have given this record a listen before purchasing but I saw it in the store and decided to buy it on a whim.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Sunflower Bean albums. Of the two, “Head Full of Sugar” is easily the worst. That makes it #2, and not in the good “silver medal” kind of way.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Headful of Sugar” feels like Sunflower Bean spent their summer vacation digging through their parent’s CD collection looking for inspiration. They find plenty of it, but whatever magic sparked their imagination is mostly lost in the translation. Instead we get a record with a few too many styles, none of which feel original.

When I reviewed “Twentytwo in Blue” I also commented on the multiple eras of music the band explores. Then it was sixties and eighties, and on “Headful of Sugar” they add the late nineties/early oughts to their repertoire. The result is a busy loudness that overpowers a lot of what made the previous record great.

The worst offender is “Roll the Dice” where they embrace the loudness wars of yesteryear, with plenty of crunch, fuzz and thump but very little to hold your attention once you strip away all the bells and whistles. Also, it takes a lot of effort to strip away those bells and whistles. The whole record suffers from this saturation of production, and even when they do strip it away for the bridge it is clunky pop radio artifice; a card trick where you can see the magician pulling the aces out of his sleeve.

“Stand By Me” has a structure like early Madonna, which is a sound I have learned (after a very long time and a lot of denial) to love. The song is buoyed by Julia Cumming’s voice, which is well suited to this bubble gum whimsy. You can see her riding in a convertible, her hair pulled up under a kerchief, girlishly flirting with the camera. It almost won me over, but at least didn’t annoy like some of the tracks.

“Baby Don’t Cry” sounds like Garbage. I mean the band here, but it strays close to the lower case ‘g’. It is a song that feels like teens should be dancing to it at the Bronze, right before a vicious vampire assault. Those songs were passable while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but they are very hit and miss away from that environment, and so too is “Headful of Sugar.”

The most maddening thing about this record is that it still has an undercurrent of what makes “Twentytwo in Blue” such a good record, but they’ve drowned it in production. It has also gone from paying playful homage to earlier eras and instead crossed over into Gestetner territory – a true copy, but in a lighter, bluer colour palate, smudged at the edges with too much ink.

I never got properly angry at this record, but I did get fidgety, and despite a long day I made a point of finding time to write this review so I could move on. I will be passing this album to someone who will enjoy it more than I did.

Best tracks: Who Put You Up to This?, Otherside

CD Odyssey Disc 1604: Neil Young

Before I start in on this next review, a moment of contemplation for Christine McVie, who died this week at the age of 79. McVie had a grace that transcended age. It is hard to know she is gone. While Steve Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham got a lot of the attention, McVie was the heart and soul of Fleetwood Mac, and if you look back on my reviews you’ll find I often reference her contributions as some of my favourites. “Wish You Were Here” and “Over My Head” are sublime and “Songbird” is one of my all-time favourites.

Good travels, Ms. McVie. If there is a heaven the choir just got a whole lot better.

Disc 1604 is…Homegrown

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 2020, but recorded in 1975

What’s up with the Cover?  A farmer and his dog. And some corn, which is clearly the crop Neil is singing about on the title track, and not in any way another plant.

This dog has his tongue hanging out and looks mighty stupid. Being a cat person, dogs generally have the look of dullards to me, and even the smart ones like border collies appear more eager than brainy.

The farmer isn’t doing much better and appears to be eating raw corn which is not the greatest. That said anyone who can grow cob of corn as long as your arm, as is depicted here, definitely has something going on between the ears. Get it? Get it?

How I Came To Know It: I have a lot of Neil Young and while I don’t buy everything he releases these days, I give most of them a listen before I decide. “Homegrown” easily cleared the bar and so…here it is, taking up precious space on my shelves.

How It Stacks Up: I have 21 Neil Young albums and have reviewed two others that I since parted with. “Homegrown” is in the middle of the pack. I rank it at #13, nestling it nicely between “Comes a Time” and “Sleeps with Angels”

Ratings: 3 stars

Over the last few years Neil Young has been digging into his back catalogue and releasing albums he never put out at the time of recording. The fact that he has several is testament to what a prodigious songwriter he is. “Homegrown” is one of these and should have come out in 1975 (he instead released “Tonight’s the Night”, reviewed back at Disc 422). The articles I’ve read that get into such matters suggest the songs were too intensely personal for Young to share back then (they relate to a relationship breaking down).

I try to judge art on its own terms not situated in a biography, but there is no denying that “Homegrown” has a weary, heart-worn quality. It isn’t maudlin, but instead has the dulled-out feeling you get from a combination of stress and sadness. It is suffused with a fuzzy, absent-minded melancholy.

The opening track is the best example. “Separate Ways” is a song resigned to the fact that happier times are in the past, still within view, but no longer within reach. As breakup songs go, it is sad but non-accusatory. The slow meander of the bass line and the whine of the pedal steel in the background combine to remind you that sometimes bad shit just happens to good people. The best you can do is write a song and try to remember the good times.

Of course when feeling bad, many escape into altered states, and that’s the title track in a nutshell. This song is at odds with the record’s overall tone, with Neil’s crunchy guitar jauntily dancing along underneath a song that celebrates marijuana. The song is an earworm, and singing along I almost drove Sheila mad. Fortunately it can be cleansed in the same way as all other ear-worms. Simply sing the tune to “Hockey Night in Canada” a couple times (the original – not whatever the CBC has replaced it with). It’ll wipe away the song stuck in your head, but not permanently replace it. Try it – it works.

Another ear-worm is “Love is a Rose” made famous by Linda Ronstadt but written by Neil and appearing here as originally intended. I heard this song on AM radio too many times as a kid, and while it is a beautiful melody, I didn’t love it.

Instead, the record’s treasure lies in its understated, mournful tunes. “White Line” is mid-seventies Neil at his best. The melody meanders like a country road cutting through fields of wheat, his voice high and quavering. You can feel yourself on that road, white strips rolling by with the reassuring anonymity that travel can bring.

The album is only 35 minutes long, but there are still elements that feel directionless. “We Don’t Smoke it No More” has a directionless blues feel that makes you wish the title were true, but the “overstayed its welcome” jam session feel tells you that the title is ironic. Also bad is “Florida” which is just Neil Young describing a weird event in a detached way like he has been smoking a bit too much homegrown. The story features hang-gliders and dead babies and yet still manages to be uninteresting.

However, other than these two tracks the record is solid, and benefits from that golden age of Neil Young’s mid-seventies sound, where he perfectly melds the folksy elements of his early work with a greasy electric guitar. It might have a folk veneer, but the songs are made out of rock and roll.

Not everything Neil has been “rediscovering” of late is worth your time, but “Homegrown” is a time capsule back to a magical part of his career, full of weed and love that is beautiful in its freedom, even when it is withering on the vine.

Best tracks: Separate Ways, Homeegrown, White Line