Bruce Springsteen

Western Stars

With its tension between escapism and responsibility, Western Stars is an album about reaching the end of the road, and what you might find there.

Western Stars is, annoyingly, another fantastic album to add to your rotation. But then it is a Bruce Springsteen album. Of course it’s superb.

Despite the lower volume, Bruce Springsteen sounds positively invigorated on Western Stars. With a new sonic palette and renewed focus on the LP as a means of writing short stories, it’s easily his best album of new material since 2007’s Magic.

Placing intricately detailed portraiture on massive musical backdrops has been a Springsteen trademark for years, of course, and Western Stars continues this legacy, transforming the enormous into the intimate. That’s the sort of magic Springsteen specializes in conjuring — and he clearly has little interest in slowing down his ride.

Western Stars is simply a staggering record. One that few of us could have anticipated Springsteen was capable of, this late in his career. If I was a musician starting out now, and heard this album, I think I’d just hang my guitar up in defeat.

Western Stars shows Springsteen pulling back the curtain on his craft in much the same way Springsteen on Broadway did. In fact, in its elliptical narratives, it might have the makings of a good musical itself.

Similarly, with so much to unpack, Western Stars grows more satisfying with repeated exposure. Deeply moving, inventive and even a bit risky, Western Stars will take its place among Springsteen's solo gems.

It adds up to an album that manages to be both unexpected and of a piece with its author’s back catalogue. Normal service may well be resumed in due course, but Western Stars is powerful enough to make you wish Bruce Springsteen would take more stylistic detours in the future.

Western Stars is erratic in the first half, as Springsteen’s need for exposition sometimes grinds uneasily against the sweep of the music. But the second half is a profound pleasure.

‘Western Stars’ is an understated triumph, righting the wrongs of his last few releases and more than emphasises the fact that Springsteen is still brilliant enough to be invested in.

Majestic in its scale, but traditional in its subject matter and narratives, ‘Western Stars’ is a wonderful thing.

Western Stars contains none of that rabble rousing. Springsteen plays and writes with a gentle touch on this 2019 album, his empathy evident in his series of story songs and character portraits and in his embrace of another aspect of AM radio that he previously avoided: orchestrated arrangements so rich and enveloping they can sound softly trippy.

Rest assured, Springsteen sounds confident and comfortable on Western Stars. His 1984 self that hoped to make different kinds of records would be proud, maybe even surprised.