Leave it to Neil Young to give streaming songs a whole new meaning with a new album, “Before and After,” released Dec. 8.

Young delivers reinventions of 13 deep tracks as one continuous piece of mostly acoustic music, with no breaks, over 48 minutes. The tracks appear to have been recorded on Young’s solo 2019 live tour but are presented here as a single piece of music with no audience applause.

The technique creates a new, cohesive narrative by weaving together songs from disparate points over a 54-year span. It also puts the songs in a new light, placing the 78-year-old Young’s voice with all of its aging, aching beauty front and center.

Anyone hoping to hear Young jamming out new transitions from one song to the next, a la the Grateful Dead, will be disappointed. Instead, a guitar strum here or a harmonica note there keeps the musical ball in the air.

As the album trails off with Young’s plaintively repeating “Don’t forget love,” in the final track of the same name, it feels like both an exhortation and a lament, a call for hope tinged with despair.

— The Associated Press