Epic trek through his passions

Neil Young

“Chrome Dreams II” (Reprise)

*** 1/2

At one of his L.A. performances several years ago, Neil Young remarked onstage about what a great railroad yard the city has. Fans chuckled at what most figured to be a wisecrack. It wasn’t. Two of the veteran rocker’s passions -- besides music--are trains and vintage cars, two key products of the Industrial Revolution that are central both to the world’s technological growth and to its myriad social and ecological ills.

They also figure into “Chrome Dreams II,” the sequel to a 1976 album that was never released but, like the Beach Boys’ “Smile,” has risen to near-mythic status in the decades since Young shelved it. Still, several of that album’s songs have assumed lofty positions in his canon after turning up later: “Like a Hurricane,” “Pocahontas,” “Powderfinger” and “Sedan Delivery.”

The centerpiece of “Chrome Dreams II” (in stores Tuesday) is “Ordinary People,” an 18-minute epic in which Young alternately embraces and attacks the panoramic sweep of the American dream. As with the trains and cars that obviously fascinate him, Young can’t celebrate the ups of an average Joe’s struggle for a better life without addressing the downs of how that struggle is undermined, by Joe’s own shortcomings and by the machinations of the society within which he’s just a cog.

The song unfurls at a slow walk but one with the seismic force of a Crazy Horse-like musical foundation from Young, Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampedro, drummer Chad Cromwell and a powerhouse horn section, a la his Blue Notes period. Its multiple verses are strewn with no fewer than three dozen references to “people,” as if the song were his musical thesis on the multiplicity of manifestations of that long ago reference to “We, the people. . . .”

There’s fury, as there was last year on his anti-Bush screed “Living With War,” but “Ordinary People” marches to a hopeful conclusion, in which the power of the people ultimately overcomes forces conspiring to squelch it in the name of progress and profit.

On “Living With War,” Young’s rage was primarily directed outward; here he goes for something deeper, examining the spiritual yearning that’s been a recurring theme in his music. It’s there in “Shining Light,” in which he seeks guidance from a higher power, and it’s there in the obliquely Native American-inspired “Spirit Road,” “The Way” and in the album’s second epic, the 14 1/2 -minute “No Hidden Path.”

Here, Young makes the case that humanity’s greatest challenge comes not from a faceless “they” or any politician but from that all-too-recognizable face in the mirror.

With most of his albums in the past three decades, he’s put on one musical hat and taken it to the limit -- folky Neil, rocker Neil, political Neil, bluesy Neil, country Neil, experimentalist Neil. On “Chrome Dreams II” he’s called a summit meeting of them all. What may at first sound disjointed stylistically becomes a celebration of musical and emotional diversity, in which all the facets of one complex individual coexist peacefully, if distinctly, and are exhibited proudly, without apology.

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Dealing with turbulence as a bad-boy rocker

Gary Allan

“Living Hard” (MCA Nashville)

***

All-AMERICAN rock ‘n’ roll has always questioned American values, even as its supersized choruses and cars-and-stars imagery raise a vaguely patriotic mood. Now that the style’s great Everymen -- Fogerty, Young, Springsteen, Mellencamp -- have settled into prickly middle age, younger guns should be claiming the territory.

But for better or worse, rock now mostly belongs to post-punk punk oddballs and Canadians. So why not give country music the keys to the souped-up Ford?

Gary Allan could easily be the next John Cougar, if not the next Boss. A California native who’s comfortable in Nashville, Allan mixes gritty traditionalism with marketable sentimentality in hits that never seem too manipulative.

He’s not much for exploring the plight of the working class, but on his seventh studio album, “Living Hard” (in stores Tuesday), Allan confirms his talent for baring the heart of the regular guy.

The 40-year-old Allan took a while to perfect his ex-urban bad boy persona; a serious loss, in the form of his wife, Angela’s, 2004 suicide, made him toughen up his sound, sharpening his rock edge and demanding more from the weepers that put hunks like himself on the charts. “Living Hard” follows 2005’s “Tough All Over,” whose best cuts had an emotional precision that recalled Allan’s role model, Merle Haggard.

On “Living Hard,” Allan continues to explore his feelings, with mixed results. He’s co-writing more than ever, and the ballads that bear his name suggest he’s been in therapy. Good for him, though titles such as “Learning How to Bend” creep uncomfortably close to Keith Urban’s brand of shaggy sensitivity.

He does better on the rockers, especially the Eagles homage “She’s So California” and the title track, a road song in which Allan (inadvertently?) quotes Lil’ Wayne, who said he was “rollin’ like the Stones” on a recent mixtape. Allan beats Weezy on the follow-up, though, admitting the life of a country mack daddy has him “startin’ to look like Dylan.”

The best cut here wasn’t written by Allan; it’s the current single, “Watching Airplanes,” which could be an outtake from Steve Earle’s great “Guitar Town,” if its protagonist had been laid off from the Boeing factory instead of just losing a girl.

Based around a melody that rises and falls like turbulence, delivered by Allan in a perfect blend of tragic hopefulness and resignation, Jim Beavers and Jonathan Singleton’s “Watching Airplanes” exploits an aviation metaphor that songwriters have employed before, but the mixed emotions Allan communicates updates it for the frequent-flier age.

He’s still progressing, which says a lot for a midcareer artist. Maybe next time he’ll go beyond his personal life and really go for All-American.

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Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent), three stars (good), two stars (fair) and one star (poor). Albums reviewed have been released except as indicated.