Originally released on vinyl for Record Store Day in April 2025, the release in other formats over a month later clarifies how, in more ways than one, Neil Young’s live album with the Chrome Hearts is a mirror image of last year’s studio album with that band. Whereas Talkin’ to the Trees was full of the former Buffalo Springfielder’s observations about life as he sees it right now, from an aged perspective, As Time Explodes finds him rendering more broad, yet focused observations on our contemporary times in the context of his own history.
To that end, the album begins with “Daddy Went Walkin’,” a winsome number taken from the 2000 album Silver & Gold. Ostensibly about the passing of Young’s late father Scott – and…
Tag Archive: Neil Young
Mirror Ball is a 1995 collaboration between Neil Young and members of Pearl Jam, released through Reprise Records during the height of the grunge era. Recorded largely live in the studio over a handful of sessions in Seattle, the album captures a loose, raw sound that blends Young’s songwriting with Pearl Jam’s dense guitar interplay and rhythm section.
The project grew out of Young’s friendship with the band following several live performances together in the early 1990s. Songs like “Song X,” “Downtown,” “I’m the Ocean,” and “Throw Your Hatred Down” reflect themes of conflict, idealism, and social tension, while the recordings retain an unpolished, spontaneous feel with audible studio chatter and extended jams throughout.
…featuring six bonus tracks (and one song replaced).
Neil Young’s sixth studio album, 1975’s Tonight’s the Night, closed out the singer-songwriter’s so-called Ditch Trilogy. 1972’s country-rock landmark Harvest catapulted Young to superstardom, yielding the chart-topping single “Heart of Gold” and becoming the U.S.’ best-selling album of 1972. But he wasn’t comfortable with everything that fame brought, and his successive albums replaced the wistful glow and commercial sheen of Harvest with something altogether darker. Tonight’s the Night followed Time Fades Away (1973) and On the Beach (1974) in the trilogy, though Beach was actually recorded after Tonight’s.
The raw, unvarnished music of Tonight’s…
After a 2+-year break, Neil Young is continuing his Official Release Series with new box sets on both CD and LP rounding up another four albums from the 1990s. ORS Vol. 6 arrives on the Reprise label with newly remastered editions of Harvest Moon (1992, ORS Disc 26), Unplugged (1993, ORS Disc 27), Sleeps with Angels (1993, ORS Disc 28), and Mirror Ball (1995, ORS Disc 29).
…Following the heavy rock of the Crazy Horse collaborations Ragged Glory, Arc, and Weld – the latter an experimental sound collage – Young cooled down with a return to the mellow milieu of 1972’s chart-topping Harvest. Young picked up his acoustic guitar and reteamed with co-producer/guitarist Ben Keith for Harvest Moon. Though the songs had been written over…
When Neil Young cut short last summer’s tour with Crazy Horse – owing, it later transpired, to exhaustion – you could have been forgiven for thinking that one of music’s most restless and hyper-productive artists would finally be forced to slow down. As if. Just a few months later, Young unveiled the Chrome Hearts, a new band who perhaps coincidentally share the same initials as their illustrious forebears.
Ostensibly pulled together to honour existing commitments at last autumn’s Farm Aid 2024 and Harvest Moon Gathering benefit, the Chrome Hearts have since become Young’s latest creative allies – rescuing him from a period of writer’s block to produce Talkin to the Trees and, soon, his first world tour for six years.