The Fat Angel Sings

“Rage takes many forms in the new songs of Neil Young. If, by chance, you don’t connect with the relatively even-tempered opening track “Already Great” which celebrates the US as “the promised land” & “the helping hand,” perhaps something in the key of caustic sarcasm suits you better? That would be track two, & the bone-rattling, inspired-by-Funkadelic groove “Fly By Night Deal.” On it, Young alternates between the role of a pipeline project manager barking orders like “Move those animals out of here” & an outraged citizen who screams “No more” & laments “no one sees what’s getting lost…”

Sometimes the 72-year-old Neil Young is tender and philosophical about the developments that anger him. Consider “Almost Always.” One minute he’s musing allegorically about birds; the next he’s castigating the sitting U.S. president as a “game show host who has to brag and has to boast about tearing down…