Peace Trail (album)

Background and recording

Peace Trail was written and recorded following the release of Young's live album, Earth, in 2016. Despite working extensively with Promise of the Real throughout 2015 and 2016, Young opted to record a solo album with session musicians Jim Keltner (drums) and Paul Bushnell (bass). According to Bushnell, the album was recorded in four days: "We did the ten tracks over four days. Most of them were recorded on the first or second take."

Young invited Bushnell to participate in the recording sessions after discovering his playing on Promise of the Real bandmate Micah Nelson's forthcoming solo album. According to Bushnell, "Micah told me [that] Neil Young loved my bass playing on the record and [that he had] asked Micah for my mobile. I didn’t really believe it until the next morning; at 10am, my phone rang from this blocked number. I answered, and the guy said, ‘Is this Paul?' I said, ‘Yes it is.’ The voice said, 'Well, this is Neil Young.’"

Critical reception

Peace Trail received mixed reviews upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 57, based on 18 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

In a positive review for Uncut, Damien Love expressed surprise that Young opted not to record with his current backing band Promise of the Real, but praised the album's collaborators, Paul Bushnell and Jim Keltner: "Bushnell provides that perfect kind of bass you barely notice. Keltner’s percussion is a different story. Captured mostly in first or second takes, he doesn’t so much keep the beat as respond to what Young is doing, an improvised interplay of odd, shaggy patterns. The record often becomes a duet between Young and Keltner." In another positive review for Classic Rock Magazine, Rob Hughes wrote: "While it may not be the most musically involved album of his 50-year career, it’s persuasive evidence that Young still has a lot to offer."

In a mostly positive review for Pitchfork, Sam Sodomsky praised Young's dedication to releasing politically-charged albums and his prolific output: "While Young’s voice has certainly never sounded older than it does here, there’s something youthful about his energy. Besides the fact that his two-album-a-year-clip keeps him in pace with your Ty Segalls or John Dwyers, his music is guided by a restless determination to cover new ground and speak his mind."

In a negative review for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine suggests that the album's recording process was rushed: "It's interesting aesthetically, but the problem with Peace Trail isn't the concept, it's the execution. Intended as a musical bulletin à la "Ohio" or Living With War, Peace Trail is filled with songs about its precise moment in time, but the execution is so artless it veers toward indifference."