Neil Young's Chrome Dreams was supposedly readied for release back in 1977 before receding into rock lore as a great "lost" record. In fact, several songs from those sessions have since appeared over the years on such classic albums as Rust Never Sleeps and Freedom, leaving just a few gems behind. Chrome Dreams II, then, is not so much a sequel (like Harvest Moon) as a repository for left-behind tracks. The first three songs -- "Beautiful Bluebird," "Boxcar" and "Ordinary People" (the last, a raging horns-and-guitar epic, is one of Young's most revered unreleased songs) -- hail from the '80s. The rest of the disc is scattershot Neil Young, ranging from Southern soul ("The Believer") to electric fuzz fests like "Spirit Road," "Dirty Old Man" and "No Hidden Path" that recall the songwriter at his shaggy, shambling best. And, hell, for all we know, maybe those songs are 30 years old, too.

-- Joshua Klein