11-06-07, 10:01 am

Magic Bruce Springsteen Colombia Records

Always an artist with a good understanding of his craft, Bruce Springsteen once told an interviewer that he sees his live shows as part circus, part dance party and part political rally - an apt description of Magic, his fifteenth studio album, too.

Following the acoustic Devils and Dust (2005) and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), Springsteen is back with the E-Street Band and producer Brendan O'Brien, revisiting the muscular, driving rock of albums such as the era-defining Born in the USA and the September 11-inspired The Rising.

Lead-off single Radio Nowhere is all dirty guitars and cultural alienation - a great opener, but lacking the depth to be added to his classic canon.

Living in the Future has all the hallmarks of a classic E-Street Band party anthem - think Mary's Place or Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out - but, in actual fact, concerns the degraded political landscape of the United States today.

'This is a song about things that shouldn't happen, happening now,' Springsteen explained recently, before listing renditions, illegal wiretapping and the neglect of New Orleans as things that are now considered as American as apple pie.

The merging of the personal and the political continues on two of the album's stronger songs, The Last to Die and A Long Walk Home, both epic narratives that long for national reconciliation and reconstruction.

'Your flag flyin' over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone,' a father tells his son on the latter.

Clarence Clemons's sax riffs and Roy Bitten's piano make a welcome return, as do the plethora of characters who populate Springsteen's narratives - Sister Mary, Theresa, Johnny, Bobby - everyday US people striving to make a connection.

While the magic doesn't quite work on tracks such as the downbeat Your Own Worst Enemy, overall it's a passionate, high-octane record that proves that The Boss is still at the top of his game.

From Morning Star