Red Mosquito

This review pretty much nails it.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/188 ... igh-hopes/

LetMeSleep wrote:This review pretty much nails it.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/188 ... igh-hopes/

Yup.

This both made me laugh and totally captured my first listening experience with the song:

Most tragic may be the closing cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream”, which begins promisingly with Springsteen’s gravelly voice and an accordion mimicking the New York duo’s gutter drone. It’s a quietly powerful moment, but you just know he’s going to do something to ruin it.

Blaine Ryan wrote:Anyone catch this article?

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/102 ... erly-rated

I enjoyed it (I really like Hyden's writing), and my thoughts on Bruce's early stuff are mostly spot on with his. I think he's offbase in a bunch of areas, though, particularly about Bruce's later work. He says The Rising and Wrecking Ball fail for being heavy-handed and preachy, and for only talking Big Themes, but I think he's missing the more personal nuances in both of them.

Thanks for this. I really like Hyden's writing too--he did a wonderful piece on Neil Young when "Psychedelic Pill" came out.

Knowing that Morello is part of this makes it a skip. He was cool within the confines of Rage but he ruins everything else he touches.

I'm not a big fan of Morello but I did like what he brought to Wrecking Ball, and barring "Tom Joad" (which I agree is horrendous) I don't find him all that offensive on High Hopes. Most of what he plays is pretty safe, bland arena-rock stuff--I doubt it'd detract much from your opinion of the songs, in other words.

After a few listens this is growing on me a little. The tracks I listed as favorites at first ("Down in the Hole," "Hunter of Invisible Game," "The Wall") I've gone from liking to really liking, and the charms of some of the lesser tracks are revealing themselves--the title track for instance, and the cover of "Just Like Fire Would"--both are credible minor Springsteen tracks, and the straight-up generic rockers are, as per usual, lyrically and tunefully smarter than their ho-hum rock arrangements (thanks Brendan O'Brien!) would have you think. The "Tom Joad" remake is offensively bad; the "41 Shots" remake probably is too, but I find it to be such a dull song to begin with that discrepancies between versions are relatively inconsequential to me. I'd still probably put this towards the bottom of Bruce's totem pole but I might up my star rating from 2.5 to 3.

I agree with most of that KD. Even the better tracks are marred by production or instrumental choices that aren't for me. Down In The Hole is a really good track but that horrible vocal transition hinders my enjoyment greatly. Harry's Place

Just Like The Fire Would and Frankie are really successful. And Morello has some nice parts and only sounds too dominating on TGOTJ (which worked live but doesn't on record.)

I think this would have worked better as 2 EPs and not an album release.

This was awesome
http://youtu.be/vckWpLAFGCA

Surprisingly not terrible..

Well Joad is but everything else..

was this 'high hopes' song recorded in new orleans?

Been listening to Disc 2 of The Promise quite a lot lately (after the Perth 2 version of Save My Love). This track is great and I can't help but think Lament would be a fan. My son dances like a maniac to this.

Your hunch is right. I've loved that song from my first play through of The Promise.

Lament wrote:Your hunch is right. I've loved that song from my first play through of The Promise.

Your son has good taste.

Lament wrote:Your son has good taste.

I hope it stays with him.

Count me in as a huge fan of that song too. Probably the best track on The Promise.

LetMeSleep wrote:

Lament wrote:Your son has good taste.

I hope it stays with him.

Just don't let him hear the sirens.

It certainly is a good one. It gets daily play while we make breakfast.

The version of Racing In The Street is absolute perfection and is probably my favourite studio recording of his. I can see that it was too similar to Promised Land so I perfectly understand them using the lesser album version.

Not sure why but I haven't listened to The Promise yet. I'm about to hop on a plane to Perth and have it on my phone to check out.

That is one of my favorite Bruce songs.