Comments:

My first thoughts were when I first heard the songs on "Are You Passionate?" "This all sounds very familiar, like something I've heard before". Well, of course I had not, but Young's new songs seemed to rely very much classic songwriting. Actually most of them appeared very catchy and more melodic than most of Young's later albums.

Positive that Young can still write catchy melodic music, but maybe also a little depressing that he comes up with so few musical surprises. Well this does not make it a bad album, in fact, I think pretty much like it a lot. Despite that its lextended playing time "Goin 'Home" is one of my favorites, this heavy raw sound reminds me a lot about "Rust Never Sleeps".

The bluesy title track "Are You Passionate" is both melodic and dense, with a glorious organ - Booker T. style.

"When I Hold You in My Arms" at first sounds like a joke, but it is in reality a very moving and melodic track - a little ala Fats Domino.

" Two Old Friends "is as the title track a melodic bluesy number - a good song which very could have been written by Robbie Robertson.

To sum it up; this is an album of good music with only few surprises - well maybe one: there really no weak songs here, which compared to many of Young's later albums is a positive surprise.