High Hopes

Just the 'ghost of tom joad' with morello is enuff in this album....but a fantstic album...

Simply Great. Milan

I think when Bruce released this album he was obviously really taken with Tom Morello's guitar sound. The truth is it doesn't necessarily work that well with the Springsteen sound. I love the sound really, it's almost Hendrixy at times and on slower numbers can be floaty and melodic, but I don't think he adds anything to the title track.It's the title track and Tom Joad that really spoil the album - High Hopes itself was a perfectly good b-side when it was originally released, but did it really need resurrecting and elevating to the status of a title track? - and of course the downbeat folky sound of the original Tom Joad is absolutely perfect, and I'm sure would be recognised as such by the original dust-bowl refugees, not to mention Woody and Steinbeck.In fact this album was a missed opportunity in regard to what tracks could have been usefully included - four tracks which came out on a limited edition EP called American Beauty.My version of this album starts with American Beauty's four tracks and misses off High Hopes and Ghost Of Tom Joad. What you end up with then is a flawless 14 track album, where the vinyl versions two sides would end with the two cover versions, Just Like Fire Would and Dream Baby Dream. Case closed.

For a long time after I bought this, I'd want to get in my car and listen to it when I was doing other things. Sometimes I'd finding myself wanting to listen to it even when I was already listening to it. Whilst this is nominally a ragbag of re-recordings of old material, to my mind, it's his best album since The Rising. There are one or two misfires on this-a cover of The Saints' Just Like Fire Wood doesn't really work-but, in the main, it's a set of wonderful songs. The re-imagining of the Ghost of Tom Joad, in particular, is one of the most viscerally thrilling things I've ever heard, The Hunter Of Invisible Game is beautifully strange and, in Vietnam Memorial The Wall, Springsteen manages to do in four minutes something Oliver Stone didn't quite manage to pull off over the course of three films. This might be a collection of off-cuts, but it's better than a lot of his rival's proper albums.

Wasn't sure if I liked this CD or not at first, but after playing it a couple of times, it's great. Some tracks are a bit less punchy than his usual stuff, but show that he can do different styles of music. The lyrics and the melodies are every bit as good as you expect from him.

A new album from Bruce Springsteen is something I always look forward to. This was no different and the anticipation was fulfilled. Although I am still digesting this new offereing fully this is a fully enjoyable experience.Tom's contributoin has introduced a different and intereing domention to the overall sound of the group Of course, and like anyone else, I already have my favourites but I found it particularly pleasureable to hear contributions from Danny and 'The Big Man' again- very nostalgic I look forward to the next visiit from Bruce and the bnand to the UK

The best thing for a decade and more. Put simply the best since 'The Rising' and right up there with his greats. An absolute return to form. I hesitated for ages about buying it due the fact that his last few albums have been decidedly average - this is hopefully the beginning of a retrin to the great albums that littered his career up to an including the aforementioned 'The Rising'. Wonderful.