Neil Young used his union with the Promise of the Real -- the gangly crew fronted by
Willie Nelson's kids
Lukas and
Micah -- to tackle weighty social problems on The Monsanto Years, a record supported by a relatively expansive tour.
Earth, a double album culled from 2015 performances, goes one further, mining ecologically minded
Young tunes and then addressing them to mother earth herself. According to
Young, the catch is, "our animal kingdom is well represented in the audience as well, and the animals, insects, birds, and mammals actually take over the performances of the songs at times." This is an understatement. Animal sounds infect
Earth, sometimes swallowing the guitars, sometimes chirping along in rhythm, an affect that is precisely the opposite of natural.
Earth is aggressively artificial, the nature noises grafted upon performances that are indifferent to their presence. Perhaps this tension could be construed as a commentary -- man plows through the world without care for his animal brethren -- but as executed on
Earth, the tension is entirely accidental.
Young and the Promise of the Real lumber along in their own world, turning out perfectly respectable versions of songs old and new -- they have some of the unwieldy sprawl of
Crazy Horse but none of the charmingly leaden lurch -- and, just when everything seems normal, the chirps, crows, and moos all arrive on a downbeat, sending things into a realm where the psychedelic and the silly coexist. Anybody looking for a straight-up document of
Young & the Promise of the Real may very well be disappointed -- all those pesky critters keep getting in the way -- but
Earth is better because of its inspired madness: the weirdness isn't merely a reason to listen, but it elevates the album to the status of one of
Young's genuinely inspired nutso albums. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine