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Bruce Springsteen Western Stars

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What does it sound like?:

For me Bruce Springsteen has always been more interesting when he’s taken it down a notch. It was Tunnel of Love where it all clicked into place for me and the one I play most regularly, and this new album, on first few listening’s, is going to be similar.
Bombast is replaced by lush string arrangements, the voice, smoother and quieter, delivers the usual stories of travel and restlessness, lost love and redemption but delivered with a lighter touch than usual. The tales are cinematic, bright Californian colours projected in widescreen, but edged with a darker hue, familiar shadows hiding pain and regret.
I’m on my third straight listen since the album arrived this morning and each listen is revealing more. It joyous and it pulls at the heartstrings, it’s everything I love about Bruce and more.
At 69 Bruce has delivered his best work of the past 25 years. I hope you enjoy it as much as I currently am.

What does it all *mean*?

Bruce still has the capacity to surprise.

Goes well with…

Release Date:

14/06/2019

Might suit people who like…

Burt Bacharach, 60’s crooners

6

Comments

  2. Thank you Mr Deckards. Your review chimes with a vary enthusiastic shout in the Indie.

    This will be the first time I have ever ordered a Brooce LP in advance if it’s release.

  3. Doesn’t sound like my bag. Bacherach, 60s crooners, strings…. I’ll give it a lis but I like Bruce doing his core business. Which includes quiet stuff obviously. The synth era was a low point for example, good songs ruined by that bloody synth pad/drum machine. What was he thinking.

  4. Deckards has just beaten me to it but as I’ve just finished writing my review Ill post it here anyway. Spoiler alert its a corker !!

    Ive never been a mega Bruce fan but like many I was much taken with his early output; Born To Run, Darkness, The River but over the years my interest waned and kind of bottomed out sometime soon after Tunnel Of Love. I was aware of the this new one and the rumours that it had a 60/70s vibe but to be honest I came to the album with an almost guilty until proved innocent attitude.

    So the good (lets make that great) news is that it does indeed have a flavour of times past with echoes of Webb/Campbell especially on ‘Sundown’ all twangy guitars, pretty backing vocals and wistful string motifs. If this makes it sound like it’s some kind of tribute or artificial concept then hold your horses because that is not how its comes across to me. Yes there is a big use of the orchestra but he’s done it with style and doesn’t let it swamp the songs; not syrupy and very much in a ‘western’ style – think big skies and John Ford movies (in fact just look at the album cover). The rest of the instruments centre around Bruce’s acoustic with some lovely pedal steel and piano filling out the ornamentation. Vocally Bruce has never sounded better and on ‘There Goes My Miracle’ he tackles some high parts admirably (a bit of vocal training there Bruce?) Maybe his stint on Broadway has been a subliminal influence.

    In the main the songs are lyrically downbeat full of broken hearts, lonesome whistles and collars turned up against the rain. Unadorned of the orchestra many of these could sit happily on The River – the songs really are that good.

    There is only one big mis-step – Sleepy Joe’s Café which sounds like a Los Lobos outtake played by the Strictly band. Not sure how it made the cut here but probably to add a bit of lightness into the otherwise generally moody atmosphere.

    Some of his albums I’ve heard in recent-ish years have sounded very compressed and overly busy but sonically this one is fabulous with a wide open vista to let his voice and guitar shine through

    This could prove to be a real highlight of Springsteen’s illustrious career; it really is, to these ears at any rate, a very good album. He’s clearly worked hard on the material to fit the mood and style of the album; using a few different songwriterly flourishes. But be assured that the majority of these songs are solid Springsteen and as good as anything I’ve heard from the man for many a long year.

  5. Thanks for review, not paying too much attention to them until I hear it though.

    “For me Bruce Springsteen has always been more interesting when he’s taken it down a notch. ”

    Not me. I actually don’t think there is an archetypal Springsteen album anyway. Even across the first 7 albums (before Tunnel) there is much diversity and different approaches. More on this later (possibly).

    Best in 25 years? Will need to be very good indeed to surpass (especially) Magic or The Rising, but I can’t wait to hear it.

    • Interesting that you mention Magic in this context, as from what I’ve heard of the new one, it has a vocal and tonal vibe that has clear links with my particular highlights of the earlier album, such as Your Own Worst Enemy and Girls…Clothes. I’ve ordered Western Stars today and am really looking forward to hearing it all.

    • Funnily enough listen to this today I thought that this new one was like every Springsteen album (not surprisingly) was archetypical Springsteen…but as somebody once said always the same but always different.

  7. Although not a particular fan of the man, I can think of few, if any, musicians in the US or Western mainstream who are so prepared to comment through their music what a complete and utter shitfest our respective politicians and governments have wreaked upon us.

    Hoping that doesn’t sound too free the Tooting One – this world increasingly needs the (imagined or otherwise) comments of observers on the world stage.

  9. Listened to it this afternoon. I wanted it to be a sort of orchestral Tunnel Of Love, but it wasn’t, though there are echoes.

    One minute i was thinking WTF is this? Then finding myself really enjoying it, in the same song. Weird.

    Could turn out to be a favourite. I have no idea, but I’ll definitely be playing it some more.

  10. Radio 2 have been playing “There Goes My Miracle” and I have to say I really like it. The vocal reminds me of someone I can’t quite place. I don’t own any Bruce and have tried several times to dive in but after these 2 reviews and on the back of TGMM I’m definitely going to give “Western Stars” a go…

  11. Listened to it on the commute this morning. Some nice “On the Road” songs there and I had a nice relaxed trip in. I do think he’s overused the “Burt Backache” / “Val Doonican” string arrangements a bit though.

    I’d like to have heard these songs with a trimmed down version of the acoustic bluegass band he put together a while back.

    If you like your Springsteen nice and easy, this is the one for you

  12. Im surprised by some of the anti Burt comments – surely one of the greatest songwriters of all time. However I don’t think this album has any BB reference points – if there was a comparison to ye olde songwriters it would be much more in the Jimmy Webb direction.

    As Martin S says it is easy on the ear but I don’t think that takes away from the quality of the music.

    PS I will be tuning in to Yacht Rock on BBC4 tonight !

    • I like a bit of Burt myself and he is absolutely a top songwriter. Some of those atmospheric sixties anthems are to die for (Dionne Warwick etc). Nothing wrong with a bit of quality easy listening.

      These Springsteen songs are about as far removed from Burt songs as you can get. It’s probably the use of orchestral strings that are raising eyebrows.

  13. I’m a relative latecomer to Bruce. Knew all the hits, obvs, and had a copy of BTR somewhere in the vaults, but Magic was the first album I actually went out and bought. Played that to death, then devoured all the back (and forward) catalogue. Picked up the blue vinly set of WS this morning and in my humble and limited opinion, it’s up there with his best. Stunning album.

  14. He’s arguably my favourite post 60s artist. Just heard it once so far, but I may be in agreement with the reviewers here (and elsewhere). This is a masterpiece.

  15. Unless you want your Bruce rocking out non stop, this will do most fans very nicely thank you. I’ve only listened once so far (goes very well with cleaning the kitchen!). I thought Bacharach as well but one thought I had a few times was that he was straying into Willie Vlautin territory and Willie does it better.

      • Sorry, i was being a bit presumptuous just using a surname, i meant Burt Bacharach!

        By the way, in case you were wondering, Willie Vlautin is the main songwriter I Richmond Fontaine and The Delines as well as being an increasingly respected novelist. It was his work in Richmond Fontaine I thought Bruce was similar to but that’s probably due to the male vocals.

  16. I may have missed it, if so I’ll repeat it, if I haven’t missed it, I’ll claim it……

    is this Bruce Springsteen and The E-String Band.

    Hmmmm maybe I won’t claim it.

        • Not all libraries are equal! I live in Luton and have accounts with Luton, Bedford and Hertfordshire their online offerings are all slightly different so it’s worth having as many as you can…especially Bedford that gives me 5 free MP3s a week!

            • Yep, in person at Luton, by email for Bedford & Herts I think. I’ve never visited Bedford library and have no idea where it is. I need to go to a Luton lib & a Herts lib every two years to get my account renewed before I can continue with downloading ebooks & audio books but as I live in Luton and work in Stevenage, that’s no hardship.

  19. Its a great record – and could be his best. The production “fits” the songs(and his age) and the songwriting is wonderful – less rock and more in the mold of Guy Clark, Townes and Isbell – for me a good thing. Of many great lines – “she liked her guys a little greasy and under her pay grade”

      • I’m in agreement. Am obsessing on it a wee bit just because of the orchestral arrangements and the fact that the lyrics are soulful as is the delivery. Keep getting snapshots of my long-dead grandfather who was a miner from Co Durham and who loved cowboy movies. He would approve of the Big Sky/Big Country soundscapes on tracks like Western Stars and Chasin’ Wild Horses.

        Definitely a top ten contender and IMO his best post-Tom Joad album.

  21. A non-Bruce-head writes – I played it this morning and it’s pleasant enough sounding record but unremarkable. Only played it once mind, so I’m sure there are depths to discover which passed me by. I didn’t like the strings. Other opinions are available but that’s the view from the agnostics’ pews.

  22. I’m a little baffled by the praise this is receiving. Some of the melodies and the lyrics are decent, but the arrangements are a mighty big hill to climb. Drowning everything in strings doesn’t do the record any favours. There are occasional nice touches, like when the trumpets come in on ‘The Wayfarer’, but there aren’t enough of them. I do need to give it more listens, but knowing that it had been on the shelf for a couple of years, I wouldn’t have minded if it had stayed there a bit longer. So far it’s a bottom 5 Springsteen album for me, maybe bottom three.

  23. It’s a thumbs up for Bruce and Western Stars from my wife and I.
    She has been reasonably forgiving of what for me has been his lacklustre output, post The Rising, but we’re both taken with this and I think it will receive a lot of play in this house.
    Excellent work, that man.

  24. It’s a grower, not a shower.

    I’m on my third listen and I feel…mixed. Some of the lyrics are frankly banal, and delivered badly (yes, Hitch hikin’, you.)

    Some of it is very good, and up there with his better stuff. Some of it is OK and only gets to “really good” because the production values which I think is very nicely balanced.

    I get the Jimmy Webb references, but it feels Webb-manque a bit. Not quite hitting the heights that he seemed to be able to – certainly nothing there of the quality of Wichita Lineman, for example, or Galveston.

    I’ll give it another two listens, but I don’t think it’s a top 3 Springsteen album. Born to Run for the opera, Nebraska for sparseness and Tunnel of Love for ripping your heart out.

  25. @Twang you are right to signal a recycling of former tunes. Tucson Train being a prime example where frankly he plagiarises himself. Listen to the strings – they are an exact note for note copy of the melody from Dancing in the Dark slowed down and a different sound because they are strings.
    It is pretty sloppy if you ask me and although the album overall is pleasant it is not worthy of the hype being doled out on here and elsewhere.
    It is a mid table effort in my view – nowhere near as good as The Rising, Magic, Darkness and Born to Run.
    I will give it a few more listens but this is a fairly easy listening record and not sure how much else will be revealed.
    Disappointed.

  26. @dai it doesn’t matter other than expected more from him given the fairly long break between this album and his last.
    Much of the E Street band stuff is repetitious in format but it is exciting most often.
    This is okay but it doesn’t grab me. I am a massive fan of Springsteen and have seen him countless times. I am desperate to see him live with the E Street band again as it is one of the most exciting live experiences out there.
    However the Broadway show (recorded version) and this album are not the high points of his career by any stretch – in fact if he toured this album I am not sure I would be excited about the prospect of seeing it in a stadium. It would have to be in a smaller venue.

    • Agree about touring, looks like he won’t be as there is allegedly an E St Band record to be recorded late this year. Maybe some selected dates with a special band/orchestra? Carnagie Hall? Albert Hall?

      The Broadway show was wonderful in person, didn’t come across as well on record, haven’t watched the Netflix special yet, not sure I will as I have my memories. I do like this album a lot, and I think at least 2 bonafide Springsteen classics in the title track and “Stones”.

      • It is growing on me – the title track is great – we agree on that. Stones reminds me of Empty sky.
        Albert Hall a good shout.
        Broadway on Netflix started well but went downhill when Patti Scialfa added her bloody awful harmonies – actually that is an oxymoron.

  28. Hmmmm, just given it a spotty. The tunes are pretty slim and require the (actually very good) strings to give gravitas. I’ll give it a miss. The strings on the Aldous Harding are also superb and I’ll be getting that.

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