Of course Barn, named after the place where Neil Young and Crazy Horse recorded it, sounds rough and unpolished. That in itself isn’t a bad thing—the old Canadian émigré and his all-time greatest backing band have made a virtue of winging it since Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Indeed, shed-based music has worked well for them in the past: They recorded the 1990 guitar extravaganza Ragged Glory in a similar fashion.

That last point hints at their new album’s biggest limitation, though: There’s nothing here that even the most casual Young fan hasn’t heard before and better. In the years to come, it’s doubtful whether any fans—or Young himself—will recall these 10 songs as fondly as, say, “Harvest Moon” or “Cinnamon Girl” or “After the Gold Rush” or “Sugar Mountain.”

Still, Barn is familiar in good ways, too. While it may not have any stone-cold classics, it makes clear that Neil Young has kept his knack for simple, sturdy melodies and terse, yowling solos. The lyrics have some pithy surprises as well, but ultimately, the album’s chief pleasure comes from hearing these old buddies—with longtime comrade-in-arms Nils Lofgren subbing for retired guitarist Poncho Sampedro—do what they’ve done best for more than five decades.

Barn begins with the serene “Song of the Seasons.” After a few strummed chords on his acoustic guitar and a handful of notes on his harmonica, Young sings of gazing at autumn leaves from “this old place by the lake” and musing that “nature makes no mistake.” So far so good for the fans who might prefer Harvest or Comes a Time to the louder stuff.

But true to Young’s contrary ways, he sneaks a couple little twists into the lyrics. There’s a thinly veiled pandemic reference (“Masked people walkin’ everywhere”) and a cryptic quatrain about a kingless queen who reigns “behind her walls and lonesome gates.” Listeners could overlook these ominous touches, though, and be lulled by Lofgren’s charming accordion and the band’s ragged harmonies.

The righteous buzz of Old Black opens “Heading West,” on which Neil Young recalls leaving with his mom as a boy after she’d divorced his dad. For the mother, heading west meant looking for “the good old days,” but for the son, it heralded a bright future. Once they found a new home, Young’s mom bought him his first guitar. One could read into this central irony the heart of Young’s artistic ethos: That old and new shall merge and give way to the eternal. As if to hammer the point home, Young slashes away on that famous Les Paul while Lofgren’s barrelhouse piano and Ralph Molina’s supple drumming drive the song forward.

The loping, sarcastic “Change Ain’t Never Gonna” sticks it to know-nothing reactionaries fighting the biofuel advocates “Tryin’ to stop them from livin’/ As they’d always been livin’.” Next comes the stomping “Canerican,” on which Young casts himself as a Walt-Whitman-like prophet, proclaiming brotherhood with all races and announcing, “I see the changes/ Coming to this country.” The song builds up a good head of steam but unfortunately fades out just as Young starts to cut loose on guitar.

On “The Shape of You,” Neil Young woozily praises his woman’s curves as Crazy Horse lurches and stumbles behind him. Everyone sounds a bit more sober on the country waltz “They Might Be Lost,” which may or may not be about a marijuana grower waiting for couriers to come pick up the latest shipment.

Young and his bandmates crank the volume back up on “Human Race” to rail against inaction on climate change. Old Black shrieks and wails with all the fury that Young withholds from his vocals. “Tumblin’ Thru the Years” calms things down as Young gives thanks for his partner’s love, which helps guide him through the “complicated thing/ This life.”

The gang returns to “Cortez the Killer” territory with the brooding, eight-minute “Welcome Back.” The enigmatic lyrics seem to verge on the mystic—Young sings of the stars “that watch us grow/ And see how we are”—but their meaning hardly matters against the eloquence of the languid, elegant soloing. The piano-led closer, “Don’t Forget Love,” urges listeners to do as the title says. It’s not the most original statement, but it’s still good advice.

Follow reporter Ben Schultz at Instagram.com/benjamin.schultz1.