Likely mortified at the thought of the Iraq War fading into the background of the current American consciousness, Neil Young knocks out a a 10-song diatribe here that pulls no punches and sounds as raging as it’s supposed to. Urgent and often desperate, Living With War is a scathing and pointed attempt to spur people into action - if you ain’t actively "against" it, then you’re "for" it, bub.

Oh yeah, it’s a pretty good record too. More on that later.

Young takes the same road the Steve Earle took with his The Revolution Starts...Now, knocking out a "message" album in record time. Appreciating that desperate times call for desperate sounds, Young fills Living With War with twists and turns upon traditional notions of patriotism - quoting the "Star Spangled Banner" within the title track and even closing the set with a cast-of-thousands rendition of "America The Beautiful". Coming off of a record so very Canadian (last year’s Prairie Wind), Young shifts his attention closer to his (now) home and, man, he doesn’t like what he’s seeing.

I said earlier that this is a pretty good record, too. That’s kind of a big deal, really, since the overall "message" is of far greater importance here than the actual music. As a result, we get Young in his hard rock default setting - heavy and abrasive guitar atop rock steady drumming. We’ve heard this from Young many times before (although you might have to go back to Ragged Glory for something this abrasive), with perhaps the only difference being his sometimes favouring speech-giving as opposed to singing here. While one might give another artist a big "ho-hum" for taking this rushed approach, it’s hard to get around the fact that Young still manages to "out rock" most of what’s out there and there’s no denying the sincere passion here.

As a protest record, how successful is Living With War? Unfortunately, probably not as successful as Young would hope. With the country so heavily and solidly divided and entrenched, Living With War ends up preaching to the converted. "Let’s Impeach the President", sings Young...after Bush startlingly winning a second term. Too little too late, perhaps.

But as a part of Young’s canon, Living With War succeeds - and the us folks who are on side with Young are delighted to have such a soundtrack on our side.