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Bruce Springsteen
Devils & Dust
(Columbia)
Bruce Springsteen's latest studio album "Devils & Dust" (out Tuesday) is appropriately titled, because the aging songster has been on the downside of a Faustian deal for several years now.
This is not your father's Boss - the one who transformed an Atlantic City barroom act into a mythical arena-rock show, that made 20-minute songs and 4-hour concerts de rigueur.
In the process Springsteen went from precocious Jersey youth to a sweat-drenched national treasure, whose songs amazingly captured the hearts and minds of both white and blue collar America. But that was then and just like those big American cars that he loved to sing about, Springsteen is now just as much of a relic.
Springsteen's first studio effort since 2002's "The Rising," finds The Boss back in "The Ghost of Tom Joad" mode, plucking on an acoustic guitar and wheezing in that Dylan-esque drawl he's developed over the last decade.
The youthful exuberance that characterized Springsteen's voice on "Hungry Heart" has been replaced with a world-weary rasp, that is apparently more appropriate for an elder storyteller. Springsteen is not interested in pandering to his adoring public and nearly everything he's done since "Born In The U.S.A" seems like a deliberate attempt to escape the efforts of those who want to pigeonhole him. The irony is that he has become Bob Dylan.
Now we're all for artistic creativity and exploring uncharted waters, but "Devils & Dust" does neither. Whereas Tom Joad was a risk, a serious departure from the E-Street style that made him an icon, "Devils" merely comes across as eccentric. There is nothing about these dozen tracks that is particularly inspiring. Even Springsteen's songwriting chops are lacking, as most of the tunes are so cluttered with lyrics it creates a somewhat awkward-sounding singing style. Most of the songs are little more than spoken word poems. The Boss also inexplicably lapses into a falsetto on some tracks and instead of adding an extra emotional dimension, it just seems grotesque.
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Just as embarrassing are The Boss's overtly sexual lyrics to "Reno," a song graphically describing a rendezvous between a prostitute and her John. "'Two-hundred dollars straight in, two-fifty up the ass,' she smiled and said... She slipped me out of her mouth, 'You're ready,' she said. She took off her bra and panties, wet her finger, slipped it inside her and crawled over me on the bed."
Ugh, the purpose of good songwriting is that you don't have to spell it out.
Despite its flaws, "Devils & Dust" is not without merit. The title track is a tour de force, reaffirming that Springsteen has an affinity for the fallen and desperate characters that dot the American landscape. Lines like, "What if what you do to survive, kills the things you love," are not delivered as a question, but as a rhetorical statement that perfectly illustrates the conundrum central to the lives of the wayward characters that so fascinate Springsteen.
"Black Cowboys" juxtaposes the plight of a black child who lives in the ultra-impoverished South Bronx neighbourhood of Mott Haven, possibly inspired by Jonathan Kozol's exquisite book "Amazing Grace," with the noble image of the historic African-American cowboys of Oklahoma. After the boy's beloved mother is overtaken by drug addiction, he steals her dealer boyfriend's drug money and escapes on a train bound for Oklahoma.
Just like with "The Rising," Springsteen is able to bring an added dimension to these types of songs that elevates them above the efforts of lesser songwriters.
The delicate treatment given "Jesus Was An Only Son" and the closing track "Matamoros Banks" are also standouts. For some inexplicable reason Springsteen felt the need to explain the latter's significance in a little note in the margin of the album sleeve, despite revealing in a recently-taped VH1 special: "Talking about music is like talking about sex." The translation: noble souls don't do it.
Overall "Devils & Dust" seems like the effort of an aging rocker, tired of constantly having to live up to his own mythical image, doing the musical equivalent of taking his guitar and going home.
Track Listing:
1. Devils & Dust
2. All The Way Home
3. Reno
4. Long Time Comin'
5. Black Cowboys
6. Maria's Bed
7. Silver Palomino
8. Jesus Was an Only Son
9. Leah
10. The Hitter
11. All I'm Thinkin' About
12. Matamoras Banks
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