NEIL YOUNG

Living with War

(Reprise)

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Throughout an almost four-decade solo career, Neil Young has been most compelling when protesting. When two of Young's friends died from heroin in 1973, he wrote Tonight's the Night, not so much to eulogize the fallen as to protest why they let themselves be torn down. With 1994's Sleeps with Angels, Young's ragged response to Kurt Cobain's suicide, what seems mournful actually is a rejection of becoming mired in despair. And with Young's latest—the Dubya/Iraq War–bashing Living with War—the gnarled 60-year-old rocker proves still up to staging a mass protest for a mass grave.

Of course, Young can turn good intentions into a convoluted nightmare, as with 2003's "narrative" on eroding small-town values, Greendale. Young's most gripping material airs grievances, while his least confounding shares an air of urgency. War, reportedly written and recorded in nine days, embodies both, and attacks lost ideals and lost lives equally with a concentrated ferocity harkening back to Freedom, Young's 1989 campaign against George "Gulf War" Bush.

Weary but wary is the trumpet's sound on War. There is reflective folky Young, then there is this scorched turn-a-mirror-on-society Young, offering 10 power-trio tracks of forthright bristle and blemished vitality. Admittedly, War doesn't use the illusionary power of a "Cortez the Killer" to avoid some blunt, destined-to-be-dated finger pointing. But the conscientious, choral-augmented imagery still offers a strident indictment of zealous "liberation" and shows Young's powderfinger on the pulse of social responsibility. An intrinsic optimist, he says let freedom ring, but even in our most immutable, infamous moments, we should build up peace, not troop presence. TONY WARE

BORIS

Pink

(Southern Lord)

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After a busy 2005—mimicking the cover of Nick Drake's Bryter Layter on Akuma No Uta (originally released in Japan in 2003), touring with labelmates/power-drone magnates Sunn O))) (and often joining them onstage), and collaborating with noise contortionist/bondage-flick auteur Merzbow for a release on Hydra Head—it was probably only a matter of time before the Japanese power triad known as Boris loaded up on Orange Sunshine and decided to get eclectic. As such, Pink goes—more or less—like this: Opener "Farewell" is straight out of Mogwai's Happy Music for Happy People; the title track is possibly the fuzzed-out Blood Sugar Sex Magic jam Red Hot Chili Peppers never wrote; "Woman on the Screen" and "Electric" are The Action Is Go–era Fu Manchu (only when Boris do it, it comes out sounding like Mudhoney covering Blue Cheer); "Nothing Special" is the Stooges rehearsing in a slow-rolling garbage truck on I-5; the instrumental "My Machine" is the kind of sub-aquatic guitar interlude found on Isis main man Aaron Turner's early House of Low Culture recordings; "Afterburner" invokes the kaleidoscopic retro buzz of Dungen (that's Swedish for Mudhoney covering Blue Cheer in Swedish); "Blackout" is the kind of thudding doom dirge that Sunn O))) re-reinvent every six months or so; and epic closer "Just Abandoned Myself" is just, well, epic. For an album that orbits so many disparate molten galaxies, bassist/vocalist Takeshi, guitarist Wata, and drummer Atsuo make it all sound remarkably cohesive—and fucking awesome. J. BENNETT

DR. JOHN

What Goes Around (Comes Around)

(DBK Works)

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Mac Rebennack—AKA Dr. John, "the Night Tripper"—has been in the media a lot lately. As one of New Orleans's leading musical luminaries for the last 50 years, the maverick pianist and singer has worked hard on behalf of his hometown and assorted music charities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Which makes the sudden arrival of this compilation of allegedly early recordings seem a mite dubious. Aside from a sticker declaring that What Goes Around features "late '60s tracks from the night-tripping king of New Orleans gris-gris," no other information is provided (or readily available online). The sleeve insert includes a vague essay, two gorgeous archival photos, and... that's it: no personnel, no recording dates, no production or writing credits, no studio locations. Makes a body suspicious, oui?

Whatever the intentions behind this compilation, the 15 selections boast raw, rollicking grooves. On cuts like "In the Night" and "Woman Is the Root of All Evil," Rebennack alternately pounds and polishes the keys with a youthful enthusiasm that offsets his seasoned drawl. "A Quitter Never Wins" lays down licks as funky as prime George Clinton slop. Even laid-back numbers, such as the shuffling "Shoo Ra," pulsate with nocturnal energy. There are occasional misfires (the closing version of "Mama Roux" sounds like a bad tape transfer; the most audible component is the backing vocals, courtesy of some ladies who might have been compensated in free booze), but overall, the disc's entertaining content—whatever its origins—outshines its lackluster presentation. KURT B. REIGHLEY