Richard Elliott enjoys Bruce Springsteens latest offering
The Bruce Springsteen glaring out at you from the cover of his classic 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, is not a man to be messed with.
Wearing the mean, desperate look of the Cain character from the record's second track, this is a man, you sense, who isn't averse to taking matters into his own hands.
Of course, the tough guy is just one of the personae that Springsteen has inhabited over the course of his long career; 2009's Working On A Dream saw him trying out the country singer on 'Tomorrow Never Knows' as well as - perhaps more unexpectedly - the beach boy on 'This Life'. But it's the tough guy who dominates on his latest album, Wrecking Ball.
Songs such as 'We Take Care of Our Own', 'Easy Money', 'Death to My Hometown' and the title track reveal an artist deeply indignant at his country's financial plight and out to get those responsible. If it's easy to scoff at Springsteen's simplistic spin on the recession - bankers are cast rather unimaginatively as vultures, thieves and worse - it's easier still to be swept along by the majesty and scale of his best album in at least a decade.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be touring the UK this summer. You can catch them in Sunderland on 21 June, Manchester on 22 June and London on 14 July.
Wearing the mean, desperate look of the Cain character from the record's second track, this is a man, you sense, who isn't averse to taking matters into his own hands.
Of course, the tough guy is just one of the personae that Springsteen has inhabited over the course of his long career; 2009's Working On A Dream saw him trying out the country singer on 'Tomorrow Never Knows' as well as - perhaps more unexpectedly - the beach boy on 'This Life'. But it's the tough guy who dominates on his latest album, Wrecking Ball.
Songs such as 'We Take Care of Our Own', 'Easy Money', 'Death to My Hometown' and the title track reveal an artist deeply indignant at his country's financial plight and out to get those responsible. If it's easy to scoff at Springsteen's simplistic spin on the recession - bankers are cast rather unimaginatively as vultures, thieves and worse - it's easier still to be swept along by the majesty and scale of his best album in at least a decade.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be touring the UK this summer. You can catch them in Sunderland on 21 June, Manchester on 22 June and London on 14 July.
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