POP NOTES.(Living with War)(Sound recording review)

COMBAT ROCK -- Weeks after National Guardsmen gunned down four Kent State students, in May, 1970, the pop singer Neil Young recorded "Ohio," blasting the Guard for the shootings. "Living with War" (Reprise), Young's new album, was created with the same urgency--it came together in just six days--though it responds to events that have been unfolding over the past five years. A protest record that condemns the Bush Administration for undertaking and then mismanaging the war in Iraq, "Living with War" sprang from Young's frustration with other artists: he has said that he got tired of waiting for a younger singer to step forward.

Of course, protest music needs to be judged on more than just conviction. Everyone remembers "Ohio," not just because of Kent State but because it is peerless folk-rock. "Living with War" opens with "After the Garden," which has a lovely melody and strong guitar work, but nothing other than its lyrics (which speak of a "shadow man runnin' the government" and a "stinkin' war") to distinguish it from countless other Neil Young songs. The title song introduces the album's main sonic tactic, subsuming the lead vocal into a huge choir and bringing populist heft to the proceedings. Young's own distinctive voice resurfaces on the third song, "Restless Consumers." Over a toothy riff, Young rejects corporate villainy in all its ...