Barn
| Neil Young, Crazy Horse
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Barn
Barn is the 41st studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young and his 14th with Crazy Horse. The album was released on December 10, 2021, by Reprise Records. A stand-alone film of the same name will also be released on Blu-ray and was directed by Young's wife Daryl Hannah. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Neil Young’s decision to prioritize immediacy over craft in his later years means these tunes arrive lovingly weathered, but rarely go anywhere in particular.
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Rolling Stone
At 76, Neil is lovestruck one minute, incensed at the state of man and the world the next. It makes for a great album.
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The Guardian
raucous, highly tuneful songs of life and love.
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Ultimate Classic Rock
Barn centers itself on a lengthy number, in this case the eight-and-a-half-minute "Welcome Back," a slow burner about "stars in the sky" and losing direction before finding peace. That's more or less been the essence of their collaborations for more than half a century now, and their return to familiar ground here feels like home.
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NME
rugged and rural beauty, with a sense of hope.
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PopMatters
Neil Young’s latest set resonates as fervently composed and heartfeltly topical, and the band are as committed as ever to authentic and vigorous performance.
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Louder
Barn is album number umpteen from grizzled veteran singer-songwriter Neil Young and his old friends Crazy Horse.
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Guitar
ENOUGH BEGUILING MOMENTS TO BE CONSIDERED ONE OF YOUNG’S RECENT HIGHLIGHTS.
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Holler
There’s something assuring about this combination, like the comfortable fit of an old flannel shirt.
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Clash Magazine
Overall ‘Barn’ is a solid Young and Crazy Horse album. The songs a layered with all that good stuff you want a Crazy Horse album to have. Crunching guitars. Laconic acoustic numbers. Mournful harmonicas. Catchy choruses and a sense of urgency. While this isn’t a classic Neil Young and Crazy Horse album it’s pretty close. It might be the most fun they’ve had since 2003’s ‘Greendale’. What it does show is that Neil Young hasn’t run out of ideas since he first emerged in the 1960s. Hopefully there is still enough left in the tank for some more albums before he hangs up his guitar for good.
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The Independent
There’s nothing new about what Young and his trusty band get up to here, but fans will find comfort in the sound of Old Farmer Grunge cranking back into action.
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Uncut
The Horse ride again to both mellow and bracing effect.
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No More Workhorse
Neil Young fans will find a few gems here to keep them going for a few months (till the crazy f*cker releases something else!). Non-believers will shrug their shoulders and move on.
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Hotpress
Crazy Horse – with Nils Lofgren in for the retired Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro – are on-board for Barn, so the volume gets turned up, but there’s acoustic tracks too, which might all sound good on paper, but Young’s song writing lets him down. Getting fresh, early takes down on tape is always a good thing, but a bit more time sculpting the songs wouldn’t have hurt anybody.
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musicOMH
Overall, Barn is a success. With its easy charm and natural atmosphere, it captures these old hands doing what they do best while still managing to spin gold in places. There’s chemistry to spare and still enough grit from time to time to excite the senses. These are earthy songs to be played on the road, to be enjoyed around a roaring fire. These are new songs that sound well-worn and well-loved – much like Crazy Horse themselves. If not that surprising a listen, it’s nearly always an enjoyable one.
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AllMusic
Happily, the loose performances more than suit these ragged compositions, turning Barn into a snapshot of this moment in time: a bunch of old friends in isolation, finding solace and comfort in the noise they can still make.
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Spectrum Culture
Barn brings the standard elements together for an album that proves the group still has all it needs and then some.
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Beats Per Minute
Barn is a really solid Crazy Horse record, definitely in the upper third of Neil’s output over the last decade or two. There’s a lot of joy and atmosphere in the set, and while some of the tracks here might be a bit too typical of their genre tropes or Neil’s past, they also bring with them a timeless, warm sense of identity and perspective totally unique in the current music world. Even if it’s not a milestone for the Canadian, it still upholds his status as rock’s most important outsider, presenting an aesthetic that is whole alternative to anything mainstream.
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The 13th Floor
This ain’t no Psychedelic Pill, but hey, it still might be just what the doctor ordered in these crazy times.
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Sputnik Music
First of all, the tunes here are solidly consistent in the good-to-great range, something which can’t necessarily be said about many of Young’s more recent attempts. Beyond that, this is simply a touching listen. Whether it’s an easy-going folk-rock piece or a gritty vintage Crazy Horse rocker, listening to this album summons the feeling of being regaled by a top-tier bar band, with the old men on stage still enjoying their craft, even if time has passed them by (think of an Americana version of the story told in Dire Straits’ “Sultans Of Swing”). If you, like me, have any sliver of affection somewhere in your heart and soul for the old days of rock music, it’s hard to resist, and I suspect that in a certain peculiar mood this album will be a go-to for a long time.
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Northern Transmissions
For the Neil Young fan, this album is a treat and for the uninitiated it is yet another introduction to a poetic soul able to put words to the simple and complex realities of life in the twenty first century. To write a good song, pure and simple.
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The Arts Desk
Reforming Crazy Horse in the face of deaths including beloved manager Elliot Roberts felt like old friends huddling together, seeking warmth from age’s encroaching chill. This time round, the fire has taken, rekindling Young’s art.
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The Irish Times
As ever, Young’s lyrics would not trouble the Nobel Prize for Literature judges, but he knows how to lead the chants at the barricades: “Today no one cares/ Tomorrow no one shares,”he sings in the fiery environmental protest song Human Race. Critics may say his songs border on gauche and predictable, but he imbues them with such intensity, conviction and colour that we can but admire him.
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For Folk's Sake
At 76, some will suggest that Young’s better days are behind him. They will say that the myriad of archival recordings show there is nothing left in the tank. Yet, based on the evidence of Barn, the ever-mercurial Neil Young and Crazy Horse suggest that there is still plenty of life left in old boy and the old band. Long may they run.
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