3.5/5
Like a quiet reflection at the close of a long night, Bruce Springsteen’s Working on a Dream is a story of everyday struggle spoken with an easy weight only earned after years as the voice of the masses. Telling of tiny victories over the turning of years, that venerated, gravelly voice beckons like you’re in the living-room comfort of his interior musings.
As always, Springsteen’s soft-spoken modesty, backed by the grandiose E-Street Band, intimates a larger humanity behind each personal ballad. Though he’s American royalty, the unfussy, steadfast percussion of title track ‘Working on a Dream’ mimics an optimistic blue-collar joe with surprisingly tender, trimmed-down earnestness.
‘Queen of the Supermarket’ strays from the stripped-raw title track, with a symphonic chorus echoing the potential profundity of a crush on the grocery checkout girl: The Boss’s haggard intensity rises from soothing lullaby to sweeping crescendo ‘mdash; admittedly, a bit sentimental for schoolboy affection.
Final track ‘The Wrestler’ (yes, a soundtrack add-on) is a lopsided grin, a black-eyed anthem to keeping the glass half full. Simply arranged acoustics weave a narrative that swells in both confession and affirmation: ‘Bet I can make you smile when the blood it hits the floor/ Tell me friend, can you ask for anything more?’
Dream is a private drama with an unblinking eye to larger truths, as narrated by the six strings of an aging god. While the album occasionally falls into quietude long enough to be scolded as monotone, and other tracks feel largely unfinished, Springsteen compensates with characteristically charming and practiced storytelling. Sure, the Boss may be well on his way to the big 6-0, but his latest crop of pick-me-ups proves he can still keep us awake long after the party’s over.