CD Review: Bruce Springsteen's disappointing "Promise"

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

"The Promise" collects more than 20 songs that Bruce Springsteen wrote in the late 1970s between his coming-of-age epic "Born to Run" and the more somber, gritty "Darkness on the Edge of Town." While "The Promise" is promising, the results aren't fulfilling. Sketches of songs that would later appear on "Darkness" pale in comparison to their later renditions, and previously unreleased studio songs such as "Because the Night" and "Rendezvous" are lackluster and inferior compared to live versions The Boss has already released.

But "bad" Bruce is "good" for most every other else.

Good cover, too.