From balmy folk revivalist to angst-rock totem, there are many Neil Youngs. Sometimes, you wish there was only one: the feckless, snarling fallen angel of On The Beach and Rust Never Sleeps.
Lamentably, Young appears to have given his demonic genius the decade off. Two years ago, he released Greendale, a rather daft piece of conceptual nonsense that mistook meandering non-songs for avant-garde rock.
Now he returns to the pedestrian blueprint of his most popular - and forgettable - records Harvest and Harvest Moon.
Described as a sequel to those projects, Prairie Wind oozes mildness from its pores. Throughout, Young flits between drowsy euphoria and a laid-back melancholy.
His purpose, it seems, is to evoke the open spaces and epic sweep of the American wilderness.
Yet beauty without context strays inevitably into blandness and, ultimately, Prairie Wind’s grandeur feels suffocating.
What results is an LP that aches to be a landscape painting, something to be admired quietly, and at respectful distance.
Nonetheless, in passages, Prairie Wind is almost moving. The single ‘Painter’ marries hushed acoustic guitars and gentle lyrics; ‘Falling Off The Face Of The Earth’ sees Young sloughing off his torpor as a growling riff crashes in the backdrop.
Fans of the Harvest sequence will adore Prairie Wind‘s sweet, carefree ambience. The rest of us may wonder why Young has stopped being angry.