*** Neil Young

SILVER & GOLD

(Reprise)

It's been a year that's seen Neil Young confront his various pasts, reuniting with Crosby, Stills and Nash for an album and tour, sifting through material for a Buffalo Springfield box set, and now releasing a solo album that includes a number of songs that have been kicking around for as long as a decade and a half. Young fanatics will recognize the title track as a tune that dates back to the 1982 sessions for his Trans album, and it's been an occasional part of his live sets ever since. "Razor Love" is another track that's been part of Young's repertoire since the '80s. And "Buffalo Springfield" is, as the title (which was also the title of that band's second album) suggests, a moving homage to the '60s band that first brought Young and Stills together: "Like to see those guys again/And give it a shot/Maybe now we can show the world/What we got."

But though it's reported to have lost a couple of prime cuts to the CSNY album, Silver & Gold doesn't come across as a second-rate odds-and-sods collection. The setting itself -- loose, laid back, mostly acoustic, and fleshed out tastefully by a seasoned crew, including drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, and bassist Duck Dunn -- is the glue that holds these 10 tracks, old and new, together. And, it's not as if Young's songwriting style or focus had changed all that much in the past decade. He does either the hard-rockin' Crazy Horse thing or the Harvest-style rootsy acoustic thing, and both sound equally like Neil Young: the former positions him as the Godfather of Grunge whereas the latter is a reminder that he's also the Great Uncle of Alterna-Country. Silver & Gold may be more evidence that Young's days of breaking new ground are well behind him, but it also suggests that the territory he's already staked out remains more than fertile enough for his needs.

-- Matt Ashare