Because Broken Arrow features the gallumph of Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina, Young's natural rhythm section since 1969, I prefer it to last year's Pearl Jam collaboration, where the jet propulsion threw him off pace a little. But I doubt most listeners will agree. Qualitywise, it feels like a cross between such half-lost mid-'70s efforts as On the Beach and the slightly subpar early-'80s stuff that began Young's depressing Reagan-era slide. If anything, it isn't lost enough--better realized than On the Beach, it lacks that cult item's weird sense of quest. In fact, it makes you wonder whether Young hasn't grown so confident in his own aversion for complacency that he could play out his career as solidly and unmomentously as, say, Muddy Waters--never dismissed, but taken for granted.

Who can say? Not you, not me, not Neil. No rock and roller has ever reached this place before, and it's conceivable that in a few years the standouts here will sound as classic as 1989's "Wrecking Ball." I'm especially partial to "Big Time," his umpteenth vibrant refusal to fade away, and the quietly indelible "Music Arcade," which hints slyly at the opposite: "I really didn't mean to stay as long as I have/So I'll be movin' on." The three songs stretched over the CD's first 26 minutes offer as much glacial guitar as any grunge diehard could wish, and nothing here is merely dull. Nevertheless, no pitch of permanent vitality will ever fully answer the artist's eternal question of what to do for an encore. In rock and roll, taken for granted is never enough.

Spin, Aug. 1996