The cover art for Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball."
The Boss is swinging back into action.
Bruce Springsteen’s new studio album will be titled Wrecking Ball and is due March 6 — but the first single off the disc has already been released.
We Take Care of Our Own debuted online Thursday, and if it’s anything to go by, the 62-year-old singer-songwriter’s 17th studio album will dress his traditional American values and heartland-rock songcraft in some new sonic textures.
The four-minute track is in many ways a slice of classic Springsteen:
An arena-rock anthem built upon a simple chiming melody, a rollicking keyboard line and rousing lyrics that champion patriotism and brotherhood — “Wherever this flag is flown, we take care of our own” is the earnest refrain. Set it to some footage of farmers on combines, little league baseball and a fireman rescuing a cat from a tree, and you’ve got yourself a pickup-truck jingle.
But when you listen around the edges of the song, it gets more interesting. Springsteen and Ron Aniello — who has helmed albums by Barenaked Ladies, Guster and Springsteen’s wife Patti Scialfa — have expanded and updated his sound slightly with layered sonics, atmospheric production and noisier percussion vaguely reminiscent of bands such as Arcade Fire.
Early buzz suggests the rest of the disc follows a similar path, experimenting with everything from loops and electronic percussion to hip-hop. It’s also rumoured to be his angriest album in some time, with songs addressing the American economic crisis.
"Bruce has dug down as deep as he can to come up with this vision of modern life," his longtime manager Jon Landau said in a press release.
"The lyrics tell a story you can't hear anywhere else, and the music is his most innovative of recent years. The writing is some of the best of his career and both veteran fans and those who are new to Bruce will find much to love.'"
Wrecking Ball will be Springsteen’s first album since 2010’s The Promise, and since the death of longtime sax player Clarence Clemons last year. It’s expected that the rest of his E Street Band will perform on the album, and accompany him on tour this year. European dates have already been announced, and North American shows are expected to be confirmed shortly. Springsteen will be the keynote speaker at this year’s South by Southwest Music Conference, held in Austin, Tex. in March.
