Eternal Force of Nature

Among Crazy Horse’s signal virtues is its ability to make Pearl Jam, which backed Young on his last album, seem as clean as a string quartet. This play-it-loud proposition skips back over Young’s reflective ‘90s output to reconnect with the monumental guitar-grunge spirit of 1990’s “Ragged Glory.�

There are a couple of reflective interludes and there’s a long, murky live recording of the blues standby “Baby What You Want Me to Do,� but this is primarily an assertion of boldly striding riffs and fuzz-drenched leads with a force-of-nature power.

Young, his reedy voice tossed on the stormy seas and fighting for a spot in the tangle, seems more than ever the rock sage, dispensing comfort and perspective. He opens with a cross-country odyssey whose chorus proclaims, “I’m still living the dream we had,� and the entire album (whose title is also one of Young’s earliest songs) is laced with nostalgia--often warm, sometimes bittersweet and disquieting.

If it seems you’ve heard it before, well, that comes with the territory. In a way, listening to “Broken Arrow� is like walking through the garage where Young and Crazy Horse have been thrashing it out since the dawn of time and are sure to remain, quoting themselves in perpetuity.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), to four stars (excellent).

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