Judge this one by the cover: Bruce Springsteen's Working On A Dream

This is Bruce Springsteen, so a little respect is in order. And maybe some repeated listens. But first we have to downplay our expectations, which isn't easy to do. Long the perfectionist, Springsteen is known for taking years between albums, obsessively pouring over track listings and details, and leaving entire albums worth of material for the archives. The quick turn around of this album, which follows Magic by just over year, was surprising. Not since 1992's Human Touch and Lucky Town have we had such a burst of activity.

Unfortunately Working On A Dream sounds as creatively stagnant as Human Touch, with only a handful of songs reaching the quality of the slightly better Lucky Town. But that's where the comparisons to those two records should end. The problem with Working On A Dream lies more in its ambitions. Following the larger than life tour for Born In The USA, Springsteen put the E Street Band on hold and spent the next decade plus trying to reinvent himself. Stumbling on records like Human Touch, but succeeding on Tunnel of Love and 1995's misunderstood The Ghost Of Tom Joad, which seemed to give him a new identity that he could use for years to come. But as Springsteen began to look back with 1998's Tracks, rumors of an E Street Reunion were inevitable, and it happened the following year. For a while it seemed like Springsteen was balancing out the occasional E Street Band record with interesting detours like 2005's Devils And Dust or 2006's The Seeger Sessions, but now we have two back to back records that seem to be aiming for the music for the masses pop domination of Born In The USA. While the bombastic nature of Born In The USA obscured many of the songs messages, that record at least had several very good songs. Which is a lot more than can be said for Working On A Dream.

Springsteen has always been a little over the top, but the pedestrian lyrics of so many of these songs are quite surprising, and you don't have to look any further than "Queen Of the Supermarket" for a good example. "I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket/as the evening sky turns blue/a dream awaits in aisle number two." And that's about as good as it gets. "Outlaw Pete" is one of the better songs on the album, but even it begins with "At six months old he'd done three months in jail/
he robbed a bank in his diapers and his little bare baby feet/all he said was folks my name is Outlaw Pete." This is not "A Boy Named Sue," and these are not novelty songs. They're serious ones, which makes the lazy and sometimes downright embarrassing lyrics all the more puzzling.

Musically the album goes straight for the center of the road, and Brendan O'Brien's production is partly to blame, but so is Springsteen's recording style. Gone are the days of the E Street Band banging out endless tracks in a studio with the hope that some of them will see the light of day. Instead this record and its predecessor were largely recorded with a smaller band within the E Street Band and used the full band as overdubs. The result is a sterile flat sounding record that lacks any urgency. Bruce is in good voice, and the record sounds good as background music, but we expect more from him.

There are some highlights. "Lucky Day" is an uplifting pop song that you'd be hard pressed to get out of your head, and "The Last Carnival" seems like a good way to wind down the record, but so much of the album is almost immediately forgettable, even after several listens. "Working on a Dream" is an okay pop song, but it seems to lack any substance. If a fluff piece, which should resonate with a large percentage of his audience. Namely the folks that still don't know what "Born in the USA" is about.

Tacked on to the end of the record as a bonus cut is one of Springsteen's strongest songs in recent memory. "The Wrestler" was key to making the Mickey Rourke movie work, especially in the preview, and it's also the record's highlight. After listening to the album it's hard not to listen to the song from Springsteen's point of view. "Have you ever seen a one-legged man trying to dance his way free/if you've ever seen a one-legged man then you've seen me."

Hopefully he doesn't see himself that trapped, and the next detour from blandland is just around the corner.