Album Of The Week: Neil Young & Crazy Horse Psychedelic Pill

Sometimes, in the course of writing this column almost every week for the past year, I've had the following response to hearing a great album for the first time: "Fuck, now I have to decide if this is better than this other great album." The whole Album Of The Week idea is, admittedly, entirely a subjective construction and a way to talk about new records I like, not some scientific down-through-the-ages survey of the week's music. But I do take it seriously, even when it makes no sense to take it seriously. Like this week, for instance. How do you choose between Neil Young & Crazy Horse's Psychedelic Pill and Neurosis's Honor Found In Decay? And why would you choose between them, when they compliment each other so perfectly? Obviously, both albums belong to different genres and contexts and address different ideas. But they're both albums full of wandering fuzztone rainy-day epics full of apocalyptic old-man regret. They sound amazing next to each other. They complete each other. There's no reason to value one over the other. (This week also sees the release of the absolutely excellent self-titled debut from the Crystal Ark, Gavin Russom's new art-disco project, but that doesn't really have anything to do with these other two albums.) And yet, I've tasked myself with picking one. I can't say with any real certainty that Psychedelic Pill will hold up better than Honor Found In Decay. I can say that it's the album that's exerting slightly more pull on my soul this afternoon, so it gets the nod. Sometimes, that's just how it shakes out.