Weld,
Neil Young's two-hour-plus double-CD chronicle of his 1991 Ragged Glory/Smell the Horse Tour with
Crazy Horse, was received with only mild enthusiasm from
Young's fans and
rock critics, perhaps because it seemed redundant. Such warhorses as
"Like a Hurricane" and
"Cortez the Killer" were making their fourth appearances on a
Young album, and the five songs from the
Ragged Glory album were basically unchanged from their studio versions. Containing only 16 tracks, the album's songs averaged over seven and a half minutes in length, and that length was given over to extended guitar improvisations, which often were filled with feedback and distortion. Where
Young's previous double live album,
Live Rust, which bore some similarities to this one, was a career retrospective including some acoustic numbers,
Weld was all electric
rock with
Crazy Horse. The one previously unreleased song was a Gulf War-era cover of
Bob Dylan's
"Blowin' in the Wind," complete with gunshots and exploding bombs. In retrospect,
Weld seems like an excellent expression of one part of
Young's musical persona, putting some of his best
hard rock material onto one album. [Initially,
Weld was released in a 25,000 copy limited-edition called
Arc Weld (
Reprise 26746) containing a third disc made up of guitar feedback and called "Arc."] ~ William Ruhlmann
