Neil Young is great at making noise, but he's even better at being quiet. You hear it again on his new album, "Storytone," where the noise guitar is packed away and replaced by acoustic instruments and a gentle quavering voice that sings of the earth that can't take any more man-made abuse.

When Neil Young is in that corner, I listen extra carefully. Acid guitar solos that are so long that you can reach the toilet and the bar before they peak may be fine, but my Neil Young is the troubadour. We can call him "Harvest"-Neil or "After The Goldrush"-Young. The one who is searingly intense, even when unplugged, and can make even a pedal organ sound like a dream.

Heavy messages whispered

"Storytone" is not a dream at all. It's Neil Young's nightmare set to lyrics and music. He's had an ecological view of the world since the late 1960s, and in recent years the fight against fossil fuels has been a particular preoccupation. He also dislikes fracking - the method used to extract shale gas - and 'Storytone' is a battle cry. "Who's gonna stand up and save the Earth?" he asks. "End fracking now. Let's save the water. And build a life for our sons and daughters." That kind of verbal fist could be hammered into people with extra power, but Neil Young knows it's not the air guitar he needs to speak to when he wants to get his message out. So he croons the serious words softly with a sound of country.

Big drama with strings

The album's sound is typically Neil Young a new radical choice. It's a double CD, and on one disc you get the songs played solo. The second - and best - sets them in a different grand universe of strings, choir and big band horns with a dash of blues. The voice is still small, but the sound magnifies the drama, as if we were Indians in a western heading for inevitable defeat. Neil Young, 69, has always been preoccupied with sound, and the hunt for sound makes him unpredictable and keeps him fresh. The releases of the 10s alone show his range: in 2010, he released "Le Noise," in which producer Daniel Lanois made the guitars glow with echoes and acidic effects. In 2012, he moved backing band Crazy Horse to the prairie, interpreting classics on "Americana" in frayed style.

Sound is always in motion

Earlier in 2014, Neil Young visited Jack White in Nashville, but instead of using the studio's regular recording gear, they made an album directly in a 1947 Voice-O-Graph. It's a recording machine that allowed ordinary people to sing a song and bring it home on record. Elvis Presley and Otto Brandenburg made their first recordings in such a box in the 1950s. The result was far from hi-fi, and although Neil Young is always chasing the best sound - and has been involved in the development of the digital player Pono - his goal is first and foremost to be on the move. He knows better than most that no energy is generated by always grinding away at the same pace. You end up getting stuck. True dynamics are created in the meeting of whispers and shouts. (Should you want to buy Storytone on CD, we have good experience with iMusic, ed)