Magic (2007)
I'm ashamed to admit it as a Springsteen fan, but there's a small gap in his later catalogue that I have yet to fill. I've heard everything from his debut right up to
The Rising, and then
Wrecking Ball, but there are a few albums I haven't heard even once, and this is one of them. Somehow, I just never got around to it. I suppose that's the problem with the internet, you can find, download and forget, whereas when we used to buy CDs (or LPs) we almost invariably listened to them if not right away, at least within the first week after purchase. The physical presence of a disc or record was hard to ignore or forget about, but a file squirreled away on your hard drive with thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of others? Much easier to overlook.
And so I did, with the result that I'm trying to address that lapse now. And as disappointed as I was with the two albums either side of
The Rising, I'm expecting big things from this. I'm not let down, I have to say. From the off it's power proto-blue-collar rock, the sort of Americana we've not only come to expect from the Boss, but which he helped to create on albums like
Born to Run and
The River. Laden with the usual political statements and raging against injustice, this album has many messages, but there's room for fun too, like "Girls in Their Summer Clothes", which nestles quite comfortably among big heavy topical fare like "Livin' in the Future" and "Your Own Worst Enemy". One thing I found missing off the two acoustic albums was the familiar sound of Clarence's wonderful sax breaks, God rest his soul, but they're here in all their glory, evoking memories of
Born in the USA and
Born to Run, while the album itself for me most closely resembles
Lucky Town or
Human Touch.
Bruce has always sung about real people and real situations, and peppered that with sometimes veiled or sometimes pointed political commentary. "The Last to Die" is one of the latter, referencing the Vietnam war, with a lovely strings backing, while the title track is the only acoustic one on the album, dark and heavy with a brooding sense of menace that wouldn't be out of place on
Nebraska. Although an upbeat, breezy song at heart, "Gypsy biker" mourns the death of an Iraq veteran as his coffin comes back to his homeland, while in something the same vein musically, "Long Walk Home" reeks of paranoia and fear.
It's great to see the E Street Band back together, for the last time, as the following year Danny Federici would leave us, followed by Clarence two years after that. Though the “Big Man” would play on Springsteen's next outing, 2009's
Working On a Dream, Federici would be dead by then, so this really marks the last time the guys all played together on a Springsteen album. Poignant and bittersweet really. There's also some beautiful violin from Soozie Tyrell, and even Nils Lofgren is back to play guitar, for the first time since
The Rising.
TRACK LISTING
Radio Nowhere
You'll Be Comin' Down
Livin' in the Future
Your Own Worst Enemy
Gypsy Biker
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
I'll Work for Your Love
Magic
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Devil's Arcade
Terry's Song (hidden track)
Rating: 9.1/10