A live album is not always a display of career-best hits. It is not the case for Neil Young, whose live album, Life, does away with expected songs. No Cortez the Killer or Harvest to be found here. These efforts are still a strong showcase from the Godfather of Grunge, who pairs with Crazy Horse once more. Young had not adapted well to the 1980s. His peers, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, had not either. It was a popular sound which no man had managed to find a way through in the studio. On stage, though, Young fared best of all. Drum machines and the weirder tones of electronic music, a soft adaptation on Life, adds a surprising layer to his already consistent live work. That’s a vocal style which will never lose its charm, an instrumental core which is strengthened the more it’s used. Life is an excellent live showcase.
Opening track Mideast Vacation is on par with some qualities heard on Rust Never Sleeps. A screaming instrumental paired with biting satire is a classic recipe. Young leans into the wry tone that little bit further than he should, but it pays off. Those instrumental crashes are nothing short of incredible and are given several breaks. It keeps them fresh. Long Walk Home is a relaxed heartbreaker, a chance for Young to pull at the acoustic country and folk of his early years. But he does not get all that sentimental, he does not have the time to as he begins Around the World shortly after. Those songs are heavy, hammering examples of Young as a rock and roll star, something he would morph into over the years after this Life release. That change is clear on this release. This is a transitional album. Intensity reigns supreme, though it’s softened by those studio ghosts of the last few years. Trans sounds like the overwhelming influence, and for all his grunting and gasps into the microphone, the vocoder interest has its hooks in Young.
Most of Life is instrumental bliss. Not quite perfect, but Young sounds as though he is feeling for a new sound as the decade draws to a close. Too Lonely is where the styles fail to mesh. Young’s higher pitch does not match the heavier rock tone here. It’s a rare imbalance, though this may be because the repetition of the song’s title and unconvincing other lyrics are a nasty blur of rock and roll cliché. It’s when Young tackles existing ideas, perceptions of his music, for instance, as he does on Prisoners of Rock ‘n’ Roll, that Life loses its way. That blur of rock and roll with slower sentimentality is rough around the edges on this release, though Young is at least attempting to adapt those songs to a genre which would define his ‘90s output.
There are leftovers of the ‘80s sound here, though. When Your Lonely Heart Breaks is a dud moment. An emotionally reactive, simpler song which would have fit on the doomed Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album, American Dream. But pair it with We Never Danced, and it works that little bit better. Young wants a soft end to this album, a contrast to the constant and heavy-hitting sound of Rust Never Sleeps. Life is a lesser live record from Young, but it still holds the firm qualities of his stage presence. He is still an artist to be reckoned with around this time, even if the instrumental work is all too reliant on a dated studio sound, which offered Young’s lowest points as a recording artist. Still, Life navigates around that with a nice enough live sound.
