Album Review: Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball
3 min read
The Boss is back! American rock icon Bruce Springsteen makes his long awaited return this month with the latest album to be added to the music veterans enormous catalogue. Wrecking Ball is a superbly crafted return to form for Springsteen and an album that has come with its fair share of challenges, notably for being the first record to be released by Springsteen since the death of his E-Street Band member, Clarence Clemmons, who passed away in June last year.
Joining a long line of releases that have made Springsteen the undisputed force of musical genius that he has become over a the last 40 years including Born To Run and the phenomenal Born In The USA, Wrecking Ball finds Springsteen as his most triumphant in recent years.
An orgy of drums welcomes in Wrecking Ball and the signature sound of Springsteen washes over the opening track and album lead single We Take Care Of Our Own on a track drenched in nostalgia and a statement of unity. Musically, the opening number is a vibrant return to form for Springsteen who is vocally strapping on the track.
The following Easy Money and Shackled And Drawn sees Springsteen taking on a folk inspired pair equipped with strings and a complimenting female gospel backing that sit alongside the musician who bounces around two of the track-listings prominent additions early on in the record.
Vulnerability drips heavily throughout Jack Of All Trades as the number tells of the hardships faced by the out of work masses, all trying to make ends meet in trying times. Over a piano driven structure Springsteen offers reassurance throughout the number, closing each verse with the poignant declaration, “darling we’ll me alright”. Though the track is a touching inclusion on Wrecking Ball it is also coated with a bitterness, desperation and frustration of the economy as the musician boldly states, “If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot em’ on sight”.
Irish influences shake up the following celtic-tinged, Death To My Hometown, as a tin whistle plays through a fantastic clap-along centre point of Wrecking Ball that is both memorable and instrumentally gutsy while You’ve Got It offers a country coated gem in the latter half of the record that represents this new collection with a strong scent of versatility and sits well among the rest of the albums collection as a superb feature of Wrecking Ball.
As well as the fantastic contents of this latest addition record, the sleeve that comes within the glossy packaging of Wrecking Ball finds some fantastic and symbolic photographs of Springsteen, particularly the touching addition of a shot of Springsteen and Clemmons that sits alongside an ode to the sax player of the E-Street Band with the moving closing line that reads, “Clarence doesn’t leave the E-street Band when he dies. He leaves when we die”.
Wrecking Ball is a triumphant return for Springsteen and one of the musician’s finest records of his career. Touching in parts and angst laden in others, the collection does a fine job in representing a seasoned legend in his prime.
The Dancing in the Dark hit maker will be heading to the UK this summer to play some of the biggest festivals including Isle of Wight and Hard Rock Calling in promotion of Wrecking Ball and from the sounds of things, this summer is set to go off with the return of The Boss.
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