Personnel: Neil Young (vocals, guitars, harmonica); Grant Boatwright (vocals, acoustic guitar); Curtis Wright, Diana DeWitt, Emmylou Harris, Anthony Crawford, Pegi Young, Gary Pigg (vocals); Ben Keith (slide guitar, pedal steel guitar, dobro); Clinton Gregory (fiddle); Connie Ellisor, Jim Grosjean, Mary Kathryn Vanosdale, Kris Wilkinson, Pamela Sixfin, David Davidson , Alan Umstead, David Angell, Gary VanOsdale, Carole Rabinowitz-Neuen (strings); Wayne Jackson, Tom McGinley (horns); Spooner Oldham (piano, Hammond b-3 organ, Wurlitzer organ); Rick Rosas (bass guitar); Karl Himmel, Chad Cromwell (drums, percussion).

Since Prairie Wind is a return to the soft, lush country-rock sound of Harvest; since Neil Young suffered a brain aneurysm during its recording; since it finds the singer/songwriter reflecting on life and family in the wake of his father's death; and since it's his most cohesive album in a decade, it would seem that all these factors add up to a latter-day masterpiece for Young, but that's not quite the case. Prairie Wind manages to be less than the sum of its parts and the problem isn't a lack of good songs (although it does have a few more clunkers than it should) or a botched concept. Young's decision to revive the country-rock that brought him his greatest popularity never feels like a cynical move -- the music is too warm, comfortable, and friendly to feel like anything but Neil playing to his strengths. However, since he cut this in Nashville with a bunch of studio pros including legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham, it feels just a tad slicker than perhaps it should, since the smooth sound inadvertently highlights the sentimentality of the project. It's hard to begrudge Young if he wants to indulge in rose-colored memories -- a brush with death coupled with a loss of a parent tends to bring out sentimentality -- but such backward-gazing songs as "Far from Home" feel just a hair too close to trite, and the easy-rolling nature of the record doesn't lend them much gravity. There a few other songs that tend toward too close to the simplistic, whether it's the specific invocations of 9/11 and Chris Rock on "No Wonder" or the supremely silly Elvis salute "He Was the King," which are just enough to undermine the flow of the album, even if they fit into the general autumnal, reflective mood of the record. But since they do fit the overall feel of the album, and since they're better, even with their flaws, than the best songs on, say, Silver & Gold or Broken Arrow or Are You Passionate?, they help elevate the whole of Prairie Wind, particularly because there are some genuinely strong Young songs here: the moody opener "The Painter," the gently sighing "Fallin' off the Face of the Earth," the ethereal "It's a Dream," the sweet, laid-back "Here for Your," the understated "This Old Guitar" (there's also the sweeping "When God Made Me," recorded complete with a gospel chorus, one that will either strike a listener as moving or maudlin -- a latter-day "A Man Needs a Maid," only not as strong). This set of songs does indeed make Prairie Wind a better album than anything Young has released in the past decade, which means that it's easy to overrate it. For despite all of its strengths, neither the recording nor the songs are as memorable or as fully realized as his late-'80s/early-'90s comeback records -- Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Harvest Moon -- let alone his classic '70s work. Nevertheless, it's the closest Young has come to making a record that could hold its own with those albums in well over a decade, which means it's worthwhile even if it's never quite as great as it seems like it could have been. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Neil Young always seems to be making a comeback, but detractors who have diligently panned his releases from the 1990s and 2000s (and sometimes with good reason) will be forced to change their tune with 2005's PRAIRIE WIND. A plaintive, thoughtful, country-rock album that recalls both 1992's HARVEST MOON and 1972's HARVEST, PRAIRIE WIND is Young's strongest, most focused, and most compulsively listenable studio album since 1989's FREEDOM.

The most striking characteristic of the album is its mood, which is heavily nostalgic, melancholy, and, lyrically, full of reflections on memory, loss, and mortality. (The passing of Young's father and his own experience with a brain aneurysm seem likely influences for the tone here). In this way, it comes close to the emotional intensity of early '70s classics like TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT, though perhaps without the edge and ragged beauty of that work. Instead, Young cut the album in Nashville with top-shelf personnel (Spooner Oldham is among the usual suspects), giving PRAIRIE WIND a smooth veneer. Still, there is a great warmth and ease to the sound, and Young turns in some of his finest songs in ages: the simple, heart-rending "It's a Dream," for example. Young has established and shattered enough categories in his time that a return to classic form like this is well-earned, and much appreciated.

Uncut (p.98) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Deep, warm, fully rounded and with no slack, PRAIRIE WIND is Neil at his best."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.61) - Ranked #31 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2005" - "Young's twilight masterpiece..."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.97) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[With] Young often immersed in reflections on his family relationships....Strong and tremulous. The core of Neil Young's neilyoungness..."