The Boss' Sound
Bruce Springsteen's nineteenth album, 'Devils and Dust', features both twelve new songs on the cd, plus a bonus DVD. If you are expecting to hear the dulcet tones of Springsteen and the E Street band then you are going to be sorely disappointed because this is not a rock album as such. The music for this album has been stripped down bare, literally to the acoustics.
'Devils and Dust' is a mixture of whispery acoustic songs, with a stripped bare rock that has the heavy influences of folk and country on it. This is the sort of album you can imagine yourself driving an American pickup and working the land to... And sitting round a campfire. In many respect this album could be called the sequel to his 1995 album 'The Ghost of Tom Joad', as it is very much in that vein.
Infact, two of the tracks on this album were performed on 'The Ghost of Tom Joad Tour' back in 95: 'The Hitter' and 'Long Time Comin'. Not all the material on this album dates back that long. 'Devils and Dust' dates back to the start of the war in Iraq, Springsteen said about the song: "It works as a metaphor for all the music underneath it, the individual stories of people wrestling with their demons."
What Springsteen said about 'Devils and Dust' could apply to most of the songs on the album. My favourite track 'Reno' deals with the loneliness of a man that visits a prostitute, whilst contemplating the loss of a loving relationship- with an explicit reference to anal sex, which earned it a Parental Guidance sticker for explicit lyrics.
But not all the tracks look at such depressing things; ' Long Time Comin' is a fantastic rocking love song; 'All I'm Thinking About' is a buoyant track, with the use of falsetto and 'All The Way Home' is a wonderful soul fuelled ballad.
This is one hell of a brilliant album, refreshing and different, and shows that Bruce Springsteen is always willing to try different directions and not fallback to a safe rock sound. There will be a large proportion of his American fans that may not accept The Boss' version politics and outlook on the world, but at least he can do what politicians can't – he gets in their SUVs!