The steady stream of releases Neil Young has been issuing over the last couple of years can be daunting, even for his most devoted fans. But there are some real advantages to experiencing the Canadian’s prolific nature, in terms of both archive titles and new releases. In fact, the latest title, Toast, offers the chance for comparison with other similarly-conceived and executed efforts in both categories.
To be specific, this 2001 recording lends itself to equivalence with not only Homegrown, recorded in close proximity to ‘The Ditch Trilogy’, but also with latter-day and past projects with Crazy Horse including Way Down in the Rust Bucket, Colorado and Barn. Shelved at the time of its genesis in favor of Young’s subsequent collaboration with Booker T. & the MG’s, Are You Passionate?, the seven-track album recorded in the San Francisco studio after which it was named features the CH personnel that debuted in 1975 via Zuma, including multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro.
Unlike that latter record, one of the pinnacles of Neil’s discography, this new one smolders but never truly catches fire. Perhaps as a measure of the emotional disarray in which Young found himself at the time—he sounds almost as distracted at times as on that Seventies LP delayed some forty-five years–he couldn’t really cut loose, even in the comfortable company of Crazy Horse. Not that the quartet doesn’t throw some sparks here and there, but he and The Horse really go nowhere fast on the opening “Quit:” its turgid rhythm almost totally distracts from the falsetto harmonies and the occasional glimmer of shine from piano notes glancing off the gently strummed electric guitar.
The loud, foreboding riffing of “Standing In the Light of Love” thus startles. Here the foursome sounds like it means business, especially in the prodding of the Billy Talbot/Ralph Molina rhythm section. But the former Buffalo Springfielder also sings as if the song means something deeply personal to him, especially when he intones the refrain ..” all it takes is a little shade…standing in the light of love.” The oblique effect is much less so on “Goin’ Home” where the band’s vocals are as incisive as the frontman’s (even when he’s singing lyrics of allusive imagery); with a foundation of dual electric guitar work extending the cut to just shy of eight minutes, this is what fans of this alignment dote on, even if the abandon in the musicianship doesn’t approach the level of intensity contained in 1990’s Ragged Glory.
Nevertheless, in conjuring a mysterious air with repeated instrumental intervals, the performance at least alludes to the atmospheric mood that’s largely missing from the two most recent collaborations of these two parties, 2019’s Colorado and last year’s Barn (on both of which Young’s long-time collaborator Nils Lofgren appears in place of Sampedro). “Timberline” is one of Young’s cryptic allegories, no more or less involved perhaps than the musicianship, but certainly, one that begs to be played at very high volume. As does “Gateway of Love” where the foursome moves at a more sprightly gait than anywhere else on Toast; perhaps not coincidentally, the lyrics are more emotionally direct than on any other tunes here, fully in line with Young’s public comments about the LP as a chronicle of his experiences in a relationship.
As such, it’s no accident that this former collaborator of CSN’s electric guitar is especially pointed or that Poncho’s insistent rhythm work amplifies that tone. This four-piece ensemble’s potent chemistry on this track sets into great relief the ambivalence that crops up in the words, an effect accentuated through the marriage of confessional lyrics with another tune of a decidedly stolid tempo, “How Ya Doin’;” if the author sounds somewhat stunned at this point—and infects the other three players with a similarly-dazed demeanor—it may only be the natural progression of the roughly fifty-minute emotional epiphany that comprises Toast.
Of course, in titling the song so informally, Young refuses to telegraph his point(s) in this regard, at least not the way he did in his socially-conscious material circa 2006’s Living With War or, nine years later, The Monsanto Years. Nor does he make that mistake on “Boom Boom Boom,” at least until he sings ‘.. all I got is a broken heart and I don’t try to hide it when I play my guitar….;’ rather than sound just as misplaced as more strained high harmony singing, strains of jazzy noir horn, plus just a touch of vibes, sound designed to represent intrusions from the outside world into those tangled thoughts in which Neil’s lost.
The track concludes the album in a quiet yet abrupt fashion. Yet that slightly unresolved air is actually the ideal means of closing this record: Neil Young’s not really sure if he’s successfully exorcised the demons he and The Horse are chasing here. But therein lies the true attraction of Toast, that is, the means to glimpse into how this idiosyncratic artist is reconsidering and reevaluating his past work as time goes on.
