The cover of Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming Jan. 14 release, “High Hopes,” prominently features two not-quite-mirror-image The Bosses, each clad completely in denim and wielding a blurry Stratocaster, each a faded, out-of-focus specter.
It’s fitting packaging for an album chock-full of ghosts. Most of the tracks are reworked versions of ideas that didn’t quite make the cut for past Springsteen records like “The Rising,” “Devils & Dust” and “Magic,” and three more are covers of obscure tunes by obscure artists like Tim Scott McConnell and The Saints.
Even now-deceased ex-E Street Band members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici contributed their saxophone and organ talents, respectively, to a handful of songs.
On “Harry’s Place,” spurts of Clemons’ beefy sax punctuate Springsteen’s slinky Tom Waits jive about the titular crime boss and his domain, while his understated runs gives textural depth to “American Skin (41 Shots).”
Both tracks also feature Tom Morello on guitar, with which he provides wah-wah propulsion on the former and a lengthy, soaring, David Gilmour-variety solo on the latter. Morello lends the corroded guitar hero histrionics that he made his signature with Rage Against the Machine to eight of the album’s 12 tracks and contributes lead vocals to “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a highly electrified reading of the acoustic title track to Springsteen’s 1995 record, which Morello’s band had already reinterpreted on their 2000 covers collection “Renegades.”
“High Hopes” is the chronological successor to 2012’s “Wrecking Ball,” but with its focus on the familiar Springsteenian social activism, it may safely be considered the thematic one, as well. But here Bruce sounds less ticked off, more wizened and weary. Nobody will mistake anything on here for Springsteen’s best work, but it’s another solid set of the work that he has always done best: heartfelt heartland rock vignettes starring blue-collar has-beens and could-bes.
From Max Weinberg’s opening jungle rhythm to Morello’s bursts of wah-wah guitar, “Heaven’s Wall” appears destined for a recurring spot in the sprawling, four-hour-plus epics that are the E Street Band’s live performances. The tune’s muscular riffage and oft-repeated “Raise your hand, raise your hand, raise your hand” refrain (those three words make up approximately 43 percent of the song’s complete lyrics) are sure to have people doing just that, regardless of their position in the sold-out arena.
Which has always been Springsteen’s purpose and prerogative – give everyone, even the people in the back of the stadium (or the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder) the time and the excuse to have a good time. Raise your hands, Bruce says, and we raise our hands. Hope higher, he says, and we hope higher.
