Couched in the orchestral “countrypolitan” style of George Jones and Glen Campbell at the tail-end of the 1960s, Springsteen’s first album in five years delivers a sound like little else in his extensive catalogue, brimming with lush strings and French horns. Its 13 songs, however, remain quintessentially Bruce, packed with lost highways, girls in parking lots, lonely towns and abandoned motels, with a cast of drifters, blue-collar heroes and bruised romantics.
If the songcraft is often inspired, the arrangements are erratic. Like 1982’s Nebraska on orchestral steroids, the booming strings are too grandiose for austere vignettes of a smashed-up stuntman or an over-the-hill actor reminiscing about “being shot by John Wayne” for a drink. A promising cello piece on Chasin’ Wild Horses soon dissolves into a retro Hollywood western score, while the faux Tex-Mex of Sleepy Joe’s Cafe is a misfit. Better are the more subtle touches, augmented by some lovely, plaintive pedal steel, on numbers like Somewhere North of Nashville and Hello Sunshine. Springsteen sings brilliantly throughout, gritty on Hitch Hikin’, Orbison-operatic on the more elaborate pieces, and though the high notes can prove elusive, he retains the cadence of a born narrator. Brave and intriguing.
