About a year ago, Young invited his longtime backing band out to his home near San Francisco. The first batch of tunes from the sessions was Americana, the set of radically rearranged folk standards he released in June. After clearing their collective throat with those ragged covers, Crazy Horse bore down on a set of furious new Young tunes for a second album. "Some of them started off with just a jam," says guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro. "And then, all of a sudden, Neil starts singing. It's like, 'Wow – this is a song!' "