Long May You Run is like an old World's Finest comic book: the team-up of Superman and Batman always drained each of his most interesting characteristics. Like Superman, Stephen Stills is a rather muscular lunkhead of a personality; Neil Young's Batman is less heroic—shadowy and darkly mortal. The music on Long May You Run is a collection of each man's puffier and less autobiographical new material….

For both, this is a less personal project, and the straightforwardness such objectivity provokes makes the album very accessible. Less a series of inner explorations than of California observations, Long May You Run includes a diatribe about a hotel, "Fountainebleau," proof that Neil Young can be entertainingly misanthropic about almost anything….

Both authors are plagued by bloated images and occasional simple-mindedness….

Long May You Run represents a holding action for Young (nothing nearly as potent as any song on either Zuma...