For the Coastal soundtrack, Neil Young strips everything back. There’s no Crazy Horse bombast, and no studio gloss. It’s just a man, his guitar, a piano, a harmonica, and six decades’ worth of stories told through song. Captured during his 2023 solo U.S. tour and paired with Daryl Hannah’s intimate tour documentary Coastal, the companion album is not so much a greatest hits set, but feels more like a meditation on time, memory, and survival.

Across 11 tracks, Young revisits deep cuts and fan favorites alike. There’s the spectral melancholy of “Expecting To Fly,” the swampy bite of “Vampire Blues,” and the timeless innocence of “I Am A Child.” He doesn’t reimagine these songs so much as re-takes them, letting age and experience color every note. “Throw Your Hatred Down” and “Prime Of Life” take on new power in a post-pandemic world. And that voice… fragile, weathered, filled with truth … is more potent than ever.

Recorded in cities across the country, Coastal is one of Young’s most intense live albums to date. The performances are unvarnished, full of pauses, breaths, and the occasional audience murmur. You can practically feel yourself in the room. These aren't songs so much as conversations, recollections offered with the grace of someone who’s spent a lifetime chasing truth through sound.

Directed by Hannah, Coastal the film is equally revealing. It follows Young behind the scenes on the tour bus, through soundchecks and side streets, giving fans a candid look at an artist still restless and searching. There’s humor, vulnerability, and a quiet joy in simply being back on the road after the long Covid-induced silence. Young’s musings feel like journal entries, at times cosmic, at others playful.

Of course, Neil Young is no stranger to reinvention. From his work with Buffalo Springfield, to his CSNY days, to the feedback-drenched adventures of Crazy Horse, he’s remained a fiercely independent voice in rock n’ roll. A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and a tireless activist as co-founder of Farm Aid, patron of the Bridge School, and environmental advocate, Young has always put soul over sales, message over marketing. Coastal, both the soundtrack and film, are documents of an artist reconnecting with his audience, his catalog, and himself. It’s the sound of Neil Young still chasing down something real in a world that’s always in flux.