High Hopes
Bruce Springsteen
Released by Columbia
Records
The Boss has arrived with his latest album, High Hopes, released Jan. 14. His 18th studio album is an eclectic mix of covers, old re-worked material, and unreleased songs from previous sessions.
Typically an album of this nature is bad news for the artist and fans—releasing a greatest hits or B-sides/outtakes album means the time has come to put out another record but the artist has little-to-no new material.
With an artist like Springsteen, that is a highly unlikely situation. Perhaps he has just decided the message he wanted to send with this album could be best said with songs that he had already cut. Whatever his reasoning for turning to the past in order to inspire the future, it was a good decision and one you might say he did not make on his own.
The most notable thing about High Hopes beyond its re-representation of old material is the addition of Tom Morello to the E Street Band lineup. The former Rage Against the Machine guitarist and current solo artist performs on eight of the album’s 12 tracks and his presence is felt heavily on all of those. His sporadic, squealing solos and at times funky lead playing lend themselves shockingly well to the songs he contributes to.
By adding an overdriven ferocity to the band, the stories Springsteen sings with desperation are given just the right touch of anger to make this one of his most sonically aggressive albums to date.
Springsteen said in an interview with Ann Powers of NPR that Morello helped him capture “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” the way he originally imagined it, instead of the mellow acoustic version that appeared on the album of the same name. His impact on songs like “Tom Joad” and the title track (a Tim Scott McConnell cover) makes it so that the tracks Morello does not perform on in contrast have a nice old-time Springsteen feel to them.
This mix of re-envisioning priorly released material and presenting unreleased songs in the way they were originally written makes for a clever balance that is maintained throughout the album.
E Street members who have come and gone such as longtime sax player Clarence Clemons can still be heard on the outtakes, making the record feel like the whole gang is joining him one last time.
With such a wise selection of cuts from the past 20 years, High Hopes is a must-have for even the most casual fan of The Boss.
