Genau so

Auf »Second Song« wird Neil Young wieder von seiner neuen Band The Chrome Hearts begleitet.

Ihr erstes gemeinsames Werk aus dem vergangenen Jahr wurde von Fans und Presse gefeiert. Die anschließende Tournee wurde zu einem wahren Triumphzug. An diese Erfolge knüpfen die neuen, halbakustischen Songs nahtlos an. Genauso muss ein Neil-Young-Album klingen.

»Second Song« ist das zweite Studioalbum, das Neil Young mit der Band The Chrome Hearts aufgenommen hat, und insgesamt das dritte Album nach dem Live-Album »As Time Explodes«, das im Frühjahr 2026 erschien. Produziert wurde »Second Song« von Lou Adler und den Volume Dealers (Neil Young und Niko Bolas). Anthony LoGerfo und Manny Adler waren als Co-Produzenten beteiligt.

Das Album enthält sieben von Young geschriebene, bisher unveröffentlichte Songs. Das semi-akustische Album ist musikalisch mit früheren Alben aus Youngs Repertoire wie »Comes A Time« und »Prairie Wind« verwandt.

Das Album wurde in den Shangri-La Studios in Malibu aufgenommen und von John Hanlon produziert und abgemischt.

Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts wasted no time after springing into existence in late 2024. By then, Young was over 60 years into one of the most important runs in rock & roll history, and had played with many a backing band, including ones that shared members with the newly minted Chrome Hearts. Still, there’s a distinctive spark to Young’s work with the Chrome Hearts, and how driven he’s been to make new work with them. Second Song arrives one year after not just the group’s first studio album together (2025’s grungy Talkin to the Trees) but also a lengthy tour and a live document of it, 2026’s burning concert album As Time Explodes. Second Song is a mellower accompaniment to the rocking sounds that preceded it, tending toward acoustic instrumentation and laid-back performances. The fully analog recording process of the album fits this soft and easy style. The familiar chord progression and gentle vocal harmonies of the meandering “Day After Day” recall the reflective beauty of earlier Young tunes like “Helpless” and add new texture with droning pump organ and twinkly piano. The 11-minute title track is similar, a slow walk through simple instrumentation and Young’s warmly creaking vocals playing with variations on melodies he may have used in slightly different forms in the past. Firmly in the same folksy mode as Harvest, Comes a Time, and other of Young's more subdued albums, the peppy country-rock shuffle of “Casting Me Away” is as upbeat as Second Song gets, burying even its slick guitar leads and drums far beneath Young’s harmonica riffs and lovelorn singing. Even the flashes of loud distorted guitar that show up in “Soon I Might Be Going” are couched in a drifting and dreamy cycle that vamps on for the song’s nine-minute runtime. There are tonal similarities between the way these songs play out and the thoughtful journey that 1974’s On the Beach took listeners on (or to a much lesser degree, like a more succinct and soft-spoken distant cousin of the heavy and drawn-out meditations of 2012’s Psychedelic Pill), with Young allowing himself to ramble a bit and then tie up loose ends with shorter tunes. It’s an especially dialed-down reading of a side of Neil that listeners are well acquainted with from how it’s played out in previous iterations over the years. The Chrome Hearts adapt perfectly into their role as an understated backing band, and Young presents some new reflections, some wandering thoughts, some beautifully tender moments, and a few welcome references to older versions of himself.

(by Fred Thomas, All Music Guide)