3x**** From the part of Neil's career where he inexplicably jumbles together whatever songs float his boat that day, Chrome Dreams II beans me in the noggin, laughing derisively at my inability to make heads or tails. "Beautiful Bluebird" is just as rustic and home-y as the title sounds and doesn't exactly sound promising if yer hoping for some edge. "Boxcar"****, the next odd, is a passable re-write of "Southern Pacific" (from Reactor). The next sod, "Ordinary People", recorded with the Bluenotes in 1988, is forcefully delivered and epic, but there's only so many times I need to hear all 18 minutes. "Shining Light" is a tender waltz-timed ballad that doesn't exactly fit his earlier periods, but could have slid into Harvest Moon. "Believer" is peppy but relatively sparse. The first side does not have any thrills I need to relive, and call me obvious, but it's the 4-floor Ragged-Glory-drive of slightly hippy-dippy "Spirit Road" that finally gets my attention, and the dumb garage rock fun of "Dirty Old Man"**** where punches finally land. "Ever After" isn't an unwelcome respite from the garage, though the placement of this second stowaway from Harvest Moon is suspect, especially when followed by the slow stomp of "No Hidden Path"****, owing its sprawling structure and occasional major chord bridges to the Broken Arrow era. "The Way" provides a lilting choral coda to this wildly varied trip through Neil's current mood.
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