Skrevet av Jack Feeney (6/10)

In a reverse of the circumstances that dominated Tunnel of Love we are again spared the release of a truly poor album by Bruce's marital arrangements. This time, and not much of an age after his initial divorce, Bruce married again (to backing singer Patti Scialfa, the sly dog). Therefore, instead of going through the motions for the sake of some snare-drum classics, he was again actually inspired to write something containing some kind of emotional investment. As a result, about half of this album consists of sappy love ballads that are at least reasonably tasteful and thoughtful. I mean, they obviously aren't up to the standard he was maintaining during the mid-seventies but that was to be expected. When these kinds of artists reach their boring farts phase it is best if they keep it simple and tasteful and, thankfully, Bruce picked up on the hint for this release. Even the rockers unconcerned with his newly-wed bliss are unambitious and solid enough to pass by without offending the long-suffering listener. But, at the end of the day, that is about as good as this album gets. It is very definitely a case of "maximin" (that's for the political philosophers amongst you) as Bruce maximises the distance from condemnation by minimising his ambition. For starters, there's only ten songs which pass by within forty minutes (Human Touch would barely have made a good EP, let alone a 14 track hour long album) and the taste-o-meter rarely flashes into the red with no synths, not much snare-drum and a modest exuberance that more befits a man of his age. In other words, he is relaxing with the adults rather than trying to roll with the kids. I hasten to remind you, of course, that this album was recorded at least a year after Human Touch. This recording gap is most evident in Bruce's vocals which, finally, have also started to show signs of age. He has developed more of a nasal rasp which, although does not prevent him from blasting out the rockers, means he was effectively forced to tone-down the attempted power of his arrangements. He actually sounds rather like Bob Dylan did in his forties (although not quite as nasal) and this album as a result sounds almost interchangeable with all the exercises in mediocrity Dylan had released in the previous decade. It is rather funny, when you think about it, that Bruce started out in the seventies by imitating Dylan's sixties material and ended up in the nineties still ten years behind the master. Obviously the 90s was Bruce's turn to go through the barren forties and it is a rather sad state of affairs that this was the best he achieved in an entire decade. Even Dylan managed to finish his decadus horribilis with Oh Mercy. Of course Springsteen didn't actually put out a huge amount of material during the 90s, no doubt content to concentrate on his 28-hour live shows with the rape and pillaging of his glory days (pun intended) through insensitive reworkings. On a similar note, this album actually starts rather worryingly with the typically brainless "anthemic" number "Better Days" which, despite a belated absence of snare-drum and synths, is notably uninspired and prematurely suggests nothing has changed. Thankfully, though, the rest of the album ventures into safer waters with most of the ballads being at least pleasant and most of the rockers self-consciously unimportant and inoffensive as a result. "Local Hero" and "Leap of Faith" (both with gospel backing singers) are exceptionally generic but the title track saves face as a much darker number than we'd expect at this stage in Bruce's career with a driving power behind it that even suggests a brief flirtation with subtlety. Another mid-tempo rocker worth the time of day is the redeeming "Living Proof" which offers evidence of some kind of thought process going into the writing of it (although it is a little snaretastic). The ballads are probably the brightest highlights on here, though, with both "If I Should Fall Behind" and "Book of Dreams" being unambiguous love songs to his newly acquired wife. The modesty of the arrangements is kinda nice and the choruses for both are at least melodic. As you can probably tell, it is difficult to say anything really positive about this album other than the fact it is better than it might have been and mostly inoffensive enough. It is so ridiculously average, though, that it is hard to even associate it with the likes of The Wild, the Innocent, Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. I realise they were written whilst he was young and at his peak but it isn't impossible for artists to keep their relevancy into middle-age. I don't want to force Bruce into a corner or anything but, again, the fact is Tom Waits released the brilliant Bone Machine the same year that this and Human Touch came out. I'm not saying Bruce was ever likely to match such a feat at a similar stage in his career but it was still ultimately his choice to go down this path. That Boss has got a lot to answer for.