Band : Bruce Springsteen
Album title : The Promise
Label : Columbia
Distributor : Sony Music
Release Date : 06/12/2010
Release : CD

All songs on this album date from back in the seventies, and were written in the same period as the tracks that made it on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album. 

On this album you’ll find amongst others, the original version of "Fire", which became a hit for The Pointer Sisters, "Because The Night", that became a hit for Patti Smith.
For those of you who only know Bruce Springsteen from his Born To Run album from 1975, behold, this is  unmistakably Bruce Springsteen, but in a far gloomier mood.  The explanation is simple.  At the time he wrote these songs, he had a legal argument with his former manager Mike Appel. Despite being almost thirty years old, these songs still sound fresh.  Thank you Bruce for bringing us these masterpieces.  You could find bootlegs with some of these songs, but not the whole lot.  Besides, we, music lovers, should not buy bootlegs, because that way the artist does not earn what he deserves. Although most of Bruce’s work is a bit too mellow for me, I did appreciate these songs. OK, it’s not hard rock or even AOR, but it’s good rock, straight from the heart.  And of course Bruce’s band is a very fine piece of machinery.

With the great Stevie Van Zandt on guitars, and Clarence Clemons on saxophone.

90/100

Erik Morren.