The eighties were no harder on Neil than they were on any of his boomer peers; one might even argue that, in hindsight, his decade of failures paints a far less embarrassing picture. Sure, there was Landing On Water, but at least there was no Cloud 9 or Dirty Work. Nevertheless, Freedom, released in the final months of the decade, would constitute a rebirth. The decision to bookend the album with acoustic and electric versions of “Rockin’ In The Free World,” nodding to his last great album Rust Never Sleeps, is no more coincidental than Neil’s sartorial appropriation of sixties Dylan on the front cover. Neil answers the bell, though, as the entirely of Freedom finds him renewed and in fine form. In addition to the enormous and widely acclaimed “Rockin’ In The Free World,” “Cocaine Eyes” points to the sludgy indulgences of Ragged Glory and Psychedelic Pill, while “Too Far Gone,” written in the 70s and bootlegged ever since, is given a superb, Stones-y reading complete with mandolin. The real draw here, though, is the evocative “Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero),” whose episodic, half-empty vignettes recall some of Dylan’s picaresque masterpieces. As comebacks go, Freedom is a knockout punch.