Bruce Springsteen’s new record — recently dubbed “his angriest yet†— has a title: Wrecking Ball. The cover art looks like something from the Boss’s days as a mere mid-level employee, and song titles like “Easy Money,†“Death to My Hometown,†and “Jack of All Trades†scream salt-of-the-earth America about as much as anything in Springsteen’s chasmlike catalogue of … oh, wait. There’s a cut called “American Land,†too.
The upcoming 25th album (predictably, it’s damned hard to keep count, but we’ll take Springsteen’s word that 2009’s Working on a Dream was his 24th offering) is set to feature Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and onetime Pearl Jam drummer Matt Chamberlain. All the right pieces seem to be in place for Springsteen, who recently landed a gig as South by Southwest’s keynote speaker, to have a huge year.
Check out the first Wrecking Ball single, “We Take Care of Our Own,†below. It skews measurably toward “Bruce just being Bruce†rather than the “late-career dude flailing to fit in in 2012†vibe one might expect on record two-dozen-plus-one. It’s solid.