Album Review: "High Hopes" by Bruce Springsteen

Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Release Date: January 2014
Label: Sony Music
Producer: Bruce Springsteen, Ron Aniello, Brendan O'Brien

Kitch's Rating: 9/10 

Honestly, I'd have paid $21.99 for the chance to hear a studio version of the epic "The Ghost of Tom Joad", a searing heavy rock collaboration between Springsteen and former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello that is so different from the haunting acoustic version on the album of the same name, released back in 1995.

My good friend, Ben Carter, suggested that Springsteen's latest offering is like a live Boss show, only on a studio record, and he isn't far wrong. You can see, in your mind's eye, Morello's soaring guitar solo during "Joad" as you can on every song that the high profile, sometime-E Street Band member has contributed on on an album that can be best described as a bunch of brilliant tracks that, for one reason or another, didn't quite make it onto the Springsteen releases that have come thick and fast since 2002's The Rising.

Unlike most Springsteen albums, which feature songs that focus on an ideal or a situation (like 2012's Wrecking Ball featured much material about the United States economy, which was floundering dangerously at the time), this is a strange collection, but not a bad one by any stretch of the imagination. 

There's no real theme to High Hopes, other than that these are all songs off the cutting room floor. You've got an upbeat opener/title track (written by The Havalinas), the anger of "Tom Joad", there's a sort of classic E Street sound on "Frankie Fell In Love" right down to Stevie Van Zandt's backing vocals, and, at various other times throughout, heavenly gospel and rowdy Irish folk music. And there's some good, old-fashioned rock and roll thrown in, as well. It switches and changes, but, the inescapable fact is that the songs are good. I love Springteen's nod to Brisbane, Australia natives The Saints by way of a cover of their song, "Just Like Fire Would" appearing on the album.

Morello appears to have become Springsteen's creative muse. It's a hell of a thing seeing them on stage together (I had the pleasure of doing so twice last year, and they were shows I'll never forget), and it's replicated in the studio. On guitar, Morello is a force to be reckoned with, and he changes the tone of songs that we've heard before on stage - the incredible rendition of "American Skin (41 Shots)" for example - but never before in the studio. Springsteen could do much worse than have Morello on speed dial if he ever has a guitar vacancy down on E Street.

Sure, it's not quite as good as 'Wrecking Ball', which I absolutely loved, but it's better than most of what else is out there on iTunes or at your record store right now. We're lucky that Springsteen is such a prolific recording artist and can put out an album of this quality from stuff that he's recorded and not used over the years. It's a nice way to bridge the gap before a new album of completely new material comes out. 

I'm really looking forward to hearing a bunch of these songs live when Bruce and the E Street Band (with Tom Morello in tow) head down to Australia in a month's time!