The album is a welcome, if predictable, reminder of the days when the guitar-driven verse-chorus song was king.
The album finds the band exploring new tones and textures without betraying their monolithic, thundering signature sound.
The album is an ambitious, dizzying jumble of genres and tones, held together on the power of the singer’s beguiling voice and charisma.
Though the band’s musicianship is in peak form, the album’s songwriting limits its impact.
The album is inexorably tied to lessons from the singer’s past—the reward of a long, strange trip.
It’s only the fleeting glimpses of the band’s more organic style that provide any lasting rewards.
The album’s unvarnished style generally works, but there’s nowhere to hide when the singer drifts into the saccharine.
The album has all the familiar hallmarks of the E Street Band’s signature sound.
The album combines childlike whimsy with sober realizations of all the sadness in the world.
The album is defined by surprising positivity in the face of, not only the troubled times of the present, but decades of life on the road.
The album strikes a deft balance between experimental and commercial, moody and uplifting.
The album offers a homey, bittersweet charm largely unique to the troubadour’s legendary catalog.
Overflowing with adventurous new ideas, the album opens up infinite new paths for the group to follow going forward.
The musician’s impeccable melodic instincts justify the album’s largely featherweight tone.
The singer melds influences as disparate as backwoods country and garage punk into a cohesive signature sound.
The album is marked by songs that are at once deeply intimate and broadly accessible.
The album explores darker, weightier subject matter than its predecessor.
The band’s 12th album is constructed on the premise that the personal is political.
The album both calls attention to its artifice and proves it can still hold a broad emotional range.
The album’s direst moments are still refreshing because they find Young doing whatever the hell he wants to.