Over the first 15 years of his remarkable career, Bruce Springsteen issued eight studio albums.\u00a0 Every one of these discs has stood the test of time; they are as vital and resonant today as on the day they first appeared.\u00a0 The same, unfortunately, can\u2019t be said for his output over the 20 years that have now elapsed since his last completely successful album, 1987\u2019s somber, intense Tunnel Of Love<\/i>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Every artist needs to evolve to stay relevant, and Springsteen has worked hard at that \u2013 at times perhaps too hard.\u00a0 His post-Tunnel<\/i> output is marked by albums that have moments of brilliance, but ultimately fall short of the musical and artistic heights achieved by classics like Born To Run<\/i> or The River<\/i>.\u00a0 They are largely albums that are of a moment, and are often effective at capturing that moment, but they simply don\u2019t fare as well as his previous albums once the new-car scent has worn off.\u00a0 Darkness On The Edge Of Town<\/i> is timeless music; Devils & Dust<\/i> is not.\u00a0 Even The Rising<\/i>, which in its moment felt like a major statement, has seen its luster fade over time.<\/p>\n
All of which underscores what\u2019s at stake with Magic<\/i> — the same question faced by any significant artist of a certain age — is there another great album in there, or are we just playing out the string now?\u00a0 Magic<\/i> makes the argument that there is\u00a0— the question is whether this is it, and the only way to answer that is with time.<\/p>\n
Magic<\/i> picks up the thematic threads of The Rising<\/i> five years later, and the writer\u2019s mood has not improved.\u00a0 Where The Rising<\/i> sought to wring affirmation from the ashes of the Opener \u201cRadio Nowhere\u201d sets the tone with one of the heaviest guitar attacks Springsteen has ever deployed, a wall of sound that, under Brendan O\u2019Brien\u2019s densely textured, echo-heavy production, achieves a kind of eerie thunder.\u00a0 The energy is fervent but dark; the lyric feels like Springsteen calling out his own audience, demanding that they quit being passive and start demanding better from everyone from corporate radio to their political leaders.<\/p>\n That dark, agitated undertone holds up through the entire album, even on the upbeat melodic numbers that dominate the first half.\u00a0 Steven Van Zandt\u2019s harmony vocals and Clarence Clemons\u2019 gorgeous sax work on \u201cYou\u2019ll Be Comin\u2019 Down\u201d give it a strong \u201cClassic Bruce\u201d feel, but the lyric is a bitter monologue directed at someone whose pride is about to take a fall.\u00a0 \u201cLivin\u2019 In The Future\u201d rides an effervescent r&b groove and gives every member of the band a moment to shine, but the lyric is another dark one, culminating in this pungent line: \u201cMy faith\u2019s been torn asunder \/ tell me is that rollin\u2019 thunder \/ Or just the sinkin\u2019 sound of somethin\u2019 righteous goin\u2019 under?\u201d<\/p>\n This line underscores the theme that comes into stronger and stronger focus over the course of the album, first emerging full-force in \u201cGypsy Biker.\u201d \u00a0This searing, magnificent rocker tells in rich detail the story of the devastated family left behind by a soldier who\u2019s become a casualty of war — a war that\u2019s also divided his own small town.\u00a0 The lyric drips with a bitterness (\u201cThe favored march up over the hill \/ In some fools parade \/ Shoutin\u2019 victory for the righteous \/ But there ain\u2019t much here but graves\u201d) that speaks as eloquently to the human cost of war as any I\u2019ve ever heard.\u00a0 And the memorial the soldier\u2019s fellow bikers hold for him in the foothills delivers an iconic image that I won\u2019t spoil for you here. <\/p>\n At this point in the album Springsteen eases up momentarily, offering a pair of lighter moments in the rather Beach Boys-flavored \u201cGirls In Their Summer Clothes\u201d and the heartfelt entreaty \u201cI\u2019ll Work For Your Love.\u201d \u00a0But even this sunny pair is infused with undercurrents of regret, a certain wistfulness that you sense could easily congeal into anger.<\/p>\n The transition to the full flower of that anger happens under the restrained surface of the title track, a concise, sparsely arranged number that suggests through metaphor and allegory that we \u2013 the audience or the nation, which are often the same in Springsteen\u2019s more political songs — have fallen under the spell of a group of people who are the moral equivalent of sideshow tricksters.\u00a0 \u201cTrust none of what you hear \/ And less of what you see\u201d he warns, as \u201cthe freedom that you sought\u201d turns ghostly and insubstantial, it leaves \u201cbodies hangin\u2019 in the trees.\u201d<\/p>\n Lest any doubt remain about what Springsteen is getting at, he slams his point home with the roiling, furious \u201cLast To Die.\u201d\u00a0 Building from Lt. John Kerry\u2019s statement before a 1971 U.S. Senate Committee hearing on the Vietnam War — \u201cHow do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?” — Springsteen rails against the leaders who\u2019ve steered the nation into a war he views as a monumental, tragic error.<\/p>\n The penultimate \u201cLong Walk Home\u201d draws many of these thematic threads together as a disillusioned narrator makes his way home to a small town that used to represent every core value he believed in, but has degenerated into a place and a people so emptied of spirit that he finds them nearly unrecognizable.\u00a0 Finally, the searing closer \u201cDevil\u2019s Arcade\u201d lands you in the bed of a gravely wounded veteran dreaming of his buddies and grappling with the faith that\u2019s been battered by his time in the titular arcade, whose earthly location seems obvious once you catch the references to \u201cthe cold desert morning\u201d and \u201cthe thick desert dust on your skin.\u201d\u00a0 Buoyed by a string section, at the finish the E Streeters launch this one right up into the stratosphere, falling back at the very end to leave only the haunting, halting heartbeat of Max Weinberg\u2019s snare and cymbals.\u00a0 And then they stop, and the implied loss hits the listener like a sledgehammer.<\/p>\n Brendan O\u2019Brien\u2019s production and mixing can feel a bit intrusive, his sonic textures too dense in places for a band with as many players as the E Street unit, but he also buffs a sort of shimmering majesty out of these songs that suits Springsteen\u2019s purposes well.\u00a0 As for the band itself, they\u2019re all in strong form, though special kudos are due to Van Zandt and Patti Scialfa, whose harmonies consistently complement rather than distract from Springsteen\u2019s lead vocals, and Clemons, who as usual makes the most of his chances to shine.<\/p>\n As with its predecessors, Magic<\/i> will take some time to fully digest and appreciate in context.\u00a0 But sitting here today, less than a hundred hours into its official shelf life, it feels like a powerhouse — a deadly serious album that still finds a moment to wink at you, a painstakingly crafted piece of art that\u2019s still resolutely down to earth, and most of all, a shot straight from the gut of a man whose best moments have always been about letting go and letting it all out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5832],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40527","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bruce-springsteen","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40527"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}