Greendale
ranks as one of the more elaborate projects
Neil Young
ever conceived, a concept album inspired by
Thornton Wilder
's Our Town which was accompanied by a film telling the record's story -- the film was then used as a backdrop for a theatrical production featuring
Young
and
Crazy Horse
. Nearly 20 years after the album's 2003 release,
revisited the project through the aptly titled
Return to Greendale
, a live effort capturing a September 4, 2003 concert held in Toronto just a few weeks after the August appearance of
. Like the album proper,
has an elaborate accompaniment: Alongside the basic concert album there's a box set that contains a Blu-Ray of the full concert, along with a DVD with the documentary
Inside Greendale
(previously released in a 2004 expansion of the album), not to mention LP and CD incarnations of the concert. As a live album,
is fairly straightforward:
Young & Crazy Horse
run through the ten songs on
, giving them a ragged, spirited reading. The performances inject some life into the material, but the songs remain something of an elliptical ramble that circle around their point instead of tackling it straight on. There's some ambling charm to
, but
won't convert doubters. Instead, it'll play well to the album's fans, as this sounds like a leaner, muscular version of the studio set. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine