There might be a double dose of imminent tourist Bruce on the cover of this, his 18th studio album, but there's actually less Springsteen within. Well, that's if you take into account that of its dozen tracks, three are covers.
They are the rabble-rousing opening title track originally by the
Havalinas, an aptly scorching Just Like Fire Would, originally by Aussie punk pioneers The Saints and to close, Springsteen's often-performed Orbison-esque cover of Dream Baby Dream, originally by New York electro-punks Suicide.
Among the rest are re-recordings of songs that have only appeared on set lists and live albums (American Skin) or, in the case of The Ghost of Tom Joad, an acoustic solo song turned into a grandiose scorcher care of sometime recent E Street Band guest guitarist Tom Morello whose Rage Against the the Machine also covered the anthem.
The core of this set is out-takes dating back to the 2002's The Rising. So this all might have come on like an odds 'n' sods collection for the Springsteen completist only. But given that it draws from a decade of solid albums and the serious guitar crunch Morello brings to his supporting role, High Hopes emerges as something bigger than than the sum of its supposedly humble parts.
Whether it's doing rock-gospel things on Heaven's Wall, heading out into the country on Frankie Fell in Love, or letting the late Clarence Clemons' saxophone wail once more on Harry's Place, High Hopes sounds as spirited and compelling as any other album Springsteen has released in the past decade or so.
