Any time Bruce Springsteen releases a new record it’s worth getting excited about. But Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band? Well, that’s an event.
And so it goes with Magic, which sees the Boss hooking up with the likes of Steven Van Zandt (guitar), Clarence Clemons (saxophone) and Max Weinberg (drums) for the first time since the 9/11 themed The Rising in 2002.
Produced and mixed by two time Springsteen collaborator Brendan O’Brien (The Rising, Devils and Dust), the album features 11 new songs and was recorded at Southern Tracks Recording Studio in Atlanta, GA.
“We’ve been together since 1974 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more excited than he is right now about this record,” Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau recently told Rolling Stone. “This album is E Street Band heavy.”
They say:
Billboard: “A sleek machine that’s practically pleading to be taken out on the highway.”
Contactmusic: “Magic is sadly not one of the classics.”
Newsday: “Springsteen’s most accessible album, start to finish, since 1987’s Tunnel of Love.”
We say:
As one would expect with the E Street Band riding shotgun, Magic marks Springsteen’s much welcomed return to driving heartland rock. And when it comes to summing up the thoughts and feelings of blue collar Joe, there’s no rock capitalist out there better suited for the job than the Boss.
This is big music, unapologetically so. Magic wants – no, demands – to be heard on car radios, pub jukeboxes and CSI episodes. It makes no bones about its bald ambition, crammed with crowd pleasing itchy guitars, honky tonk piano and howling sax that recall Born to Run and Born in the USA and you have to applaud it for it.
But ambition needs substance fighting for it in its corner and here you’ll find an 800 pound gorilla that packs a killer punch.
Springsteen’s lyrics aren’t so much dancing in the dark as weeping, with meditations on troubled love, decaying morality and the unjust social order. It’s the kind of sneaky juxtaposition that lead to the title track from Born in the USA being misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem by gap toothed Reaganites all those years ago.
The album’s most overtly political moments occur during the hard rocking ‘Last to Die’, inspired by John Kerry’s famed 1971 testimony on Vietnam and ‘Devil’s Arcade’, a slow burning tribute to a soldier wounded in Iraq.
Assessing what has gone on since post Sept. 11, Magic proves to be one of the most articulate and passionate denunciations of US foreign policy in rock.
Elsewhere, ‘Girls in Their Summer Clothes’ alleviates fears Springsteen is simply covering old E Street sonic territory, with its lonely, ghost like protagonist placed against a backdrop of autumnal acoustics and Pet Sounds esque sweeping strings. The veteran rocker obviously still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Anthemic, lyrically profound and remarkably fresh sounding (hmm, what does that tell you about the current music scene?), Magic gives Springsteen fans what they want and just that little bit more. It’s spellbinding and it’s coming to a radio near you – that is, if radio still has a soul and a beating heart.
Like this? Try these:
Bob Dylan – Dylan
U2 – The Joshua Tree
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
RELEASED
Out now
LABEL
Columbia
POSTED...
Thu 4 Oct 2007 at 9:01pm
