Hawks & Doves (Remastered)

Coming after 1979's masterful Rust Never Sleeps and, in retrospect, ushering in Young's long, unfocused decade where it took until 1989's Freedom to relocate his comfort zone, 1980's Hawks and Doves is a difficult album to accurately gauge. At less than half-an-hour and only nine tracks, it feels tossed off. (One track, "The Old Homestead," is copyrighted in 1974.) Like Rust Never Sleeps, the album is divided into acoustic and electric sides. Unlike Rust, it has no anthem like "My, My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" to center it. That isn't to say these aren't fine songs. "Little Wing" is short and tender. "The Old Homestead" is long and enigmatic. The sadly overlooked "Captain Kennedy" resonates with the desperate soldier's dream to reclaim his family's honor. "Union Man," "Comin' Apart at Every Nail," and the excellent title track are loose, countrified working-class anthems that typical of Young allow him to be both heartland union worker and lazy, southern California lackadaisical hippie. Which, of course, as a hard-working Canadian rock star, he is neither.