Springsteen's "Devils & Dust"
Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 2:46 pm
The Tribune printed a review. Their critic is a Springsteen fan, but unlike Dave Marsh and some others, he's not a total fanatic - he gave the last album a lukewarm review, calling Springsteen on some pretty bad writing and a few bad songs too many on a bloated, 70+ minute album.
Lukewarm review on this one, too, but he criticizes the production more.
Springsteen pulls his punches on latest album
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published April 24, 2005
After reuniting with the E Street Band for "The Rising" (2002) and cleaning up at the box office on tour, Bruce Springsteen temporarily mothballs the arena rock on his latest album, "Devils & Dust" (Columbia), due in stores Tuesday.
The disc can be heard as the final part of an acoustic trilogy that spans three decades. Springsteen's two previous attempts at making stripped-down, semiplugged recordings were hit and miss. Part 1 arrived in 1982, with the fugitive psychodramas of "Nebraska." Essentially a home demo recording that initially baffled newly won fans, "Nebraska" has only increased in stature since its release and become one of Springsteen's classics.
In 1995, the singer returned to acoustic mode on "The Ghost of Tom Joad." It comes off as a well-intentioned dud, with Springsteen mumbling carefully observed lyrics about blue-collar workers and desperate immigrants. It's the sound of solemnity rather than music, with mush-mouthed singing and slight melodies.
"Devils & Dust" is more musical than "Joad," but not nearly as intense as "Nebraska." Those who embrace it must also be able to tolerate Springsteen's sometimes-affected drawl; he's a Jersey boy who at times tries to sound as if he were raised in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, circa 1933.
His fans will forgive him, however, because he again proves himself to be a master of the character study. He portrays a crooked boxer ("The Hitter"), a soldier in the Iraqi desert ("Devils and Dust"), a 12-year-old coping with his mother's death ("Silver Palomino"), and yet another immigrant looking for salvation ("Matamoros Banks") in songs rich with detail.
In this world, words are paramount, music a mere decoration. Producer Brendan O'Brien strives to complement the stories by making them prettier; he constructs rustic chamber pop out of a small rhythm section and stringed instruments. There's more than a hint of country twang, as befits songs largely situated in the Southwest. Springsteen's voice and acoustic guitar shoulder the primary weight. His melodies are careful and stately, and never rise to a fist-pumping crescendo.
Springsteen has made an album almost impossible not to respect. But it lacks the haunting intensity of his best ballads, from "The River" to "Philadelphia." That's because Springsteen's stories frequently trump his music; "Black Cowboys" hovers rather than moves, its tale of boyhood innocence lost shrouded in gray. "Silver Palomino" never quite gets off the couch as the pace winds down from slow to slower. Missing is the wired, claustrophobic tension that lingered just beneath the surface of the best songs on "Nebraska."
Part of the problem is that Springsteen doesn't trust his songs enough. He hands over the production to a professional who sugars the arrangements but doesn't improve them. At its best, "Devils and Dust" has a rawness that demands to be served cold. "Reno" qualifies as Springsteen's most explicit song ever; it describes a tryst between a hooker and a boozy drifter, and warrants an "adult imagery" warning sticker on the album cover. The story's a heartbreaking one, like the prelude to some cataclysmic reckoning in one of Jim Thompson's pulp novels, but it's swathed in strings that cushion the bleakness. Far better is the unadorned acoustic version included on the other side of this Dual Disc, a new technology that has a conventional CD on one side and a DVD on the other.
It's telling that the album's most powerful track, "The Hitter," is among its sparest. Springsteen's voice sounds natural, a doleful baritone that sketches in the bleak, brutal details of a stigmatized boxer's life; it could be the story of Morgan Freeman's noble has-been in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby." Along with the five Springsteen acoustic performances on the DVD, it's a tantalizing glimpse of the stark, wrenching album the singer could've made had he decided not to gussy up the tunes.
Lukewarm review on this one, too, but he criticizes the production more.
Springsteen pulls his punches on latest album
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published April 24, 2005
After reuniting with the E Street Band for "The Rising" (2002) and cleaning up at the box office on tour, Bruce Springsteen temporarily mothballs the arena rock on his latest album, "Devils & Dust" (Columbia), due in stores Tuesday.
The disc can be heard as the final part of an acoustic trilogy that spans three decades. Springsteen's two previous attempts at making stripped-down, semiplugged recordings were hit and miss. Part 1 arrived in 1982, with the fugitive psychodramas of "Nebraska." Essentially a home demo recording that initially baffled newly won fans, "Nebraska" has only increased in stature since its release and become one of Springsteen's classics.
In 1995, the singer returned to acoustic mode on "The Ghost of Tom Joad." It comes off as a well-intentioned dud, with Springsteen mumbling carefully observed lyrics about blue-collar workers and desperate immigrants. It's the sound of solemnity rather than music, with mush-mouthed singing and slight melodies.
"Devils & Dust" is more musical than "Joad," but not nearly as intense as "Nebraska." Those who embrace it must also be able to tolerate Springsteen's sometimes-affected drawl; he's a Jersey boy who at times tries to sound as if he were raised in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, circa 1933.
His fans will forgive him, however, because he again proves himself to be a master of the character study. He portrays a crooked boxer ("The Hitter"), a soldier in the Iraqi desert ("Devils and Dust"), a 12-year-old coping with his mother's death ("Silver Palomino"), and yet another immigrant looking for salvation ("Matamoros Banks") in songs rich with detail.
In this world, words are paramount, music a mere decoration. Producer Brendan O'Brien strives to complement the stories by making them prettier; he constructs rustic chamber pop out of a small rhythm section and stringed instruments. There's more than a hint of country twang, as befits songs largely situated in the Southwest. Springsteen's voice and acoustic guitar shoulder the primary weight. His melodies are careful and stately, and never rise to a fist-pumping crescendo.
Springsteen has made an album almost impossible not to respect. But it lacks the haunting intensity of his best ballads, from "The River" to "Philadelphia." That's because Springsteen's stories frequently trump his music; "Black Cowboys" hovers rather than moves, its tale of boyhood innocence lost shrouded in gray. "Silver Palomino" never quite gets off the couch as the pace winds down from slow to slower. Missing is the wired, claustrophobic tension that lingered just beneath the surface of the best songs on "Nebraska."
Part of the problem is that Springsteen doesn't trust his songs enough. He hands over the production to a professional who sugars the arrangements but doesn't improve them. At its best, "Devils and Dust" has a rawness that demands to be served cold. "Reno" qualifies as Springsteen's most explicit song ever; it describes a tryst between a hooker and a boozy drifter, and warrants an "adult imagery" warning sticker on the album cover. The story's a heartbreaking one, like the prelude to some cataclysmic reckoning in one of Jim Thompson's pulp novels, but it's swathed in strings that cushion the bleakness. Far better is the unadorned acoustic version included on the other side of this Dual Disc, a new technology that has a conventional CD on one side and a DVD on the other.
It's telling that the album's most powerful track, "The Hitter," is among its sparest. Springsteen's voice sounds natural, a doleful baritone that sketches in the bleak, brutal details of a stigmatized boxer's life; it could be the story of Morgan Freeman's noble has-been in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby." Along with the five Springsteen acoustic performances on the DVD, it's a tantalizing glimpse of the stark, wrenching album the singer could've made had he decided not to gussy up the tunes.