The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen

"Wrecking Ball" is Bruce Springsteen as you or I have never heard him before.

Not quite as brave as "Nebraska," this new album is still an important, bold work, filled with surprising twists I didn't think would ever hear in his music. Sampling? Check. Rampant use of electronic percussion? A rap? Check. And check.

And despite my overt dislike for those elements, "Wrecking Ball" is a successful, and very often great, reflection of our times.

A great deal of that success lies in the message, which essentially boils down to a soundtrack of the Occupy Movement. Springsteen decries the "fat cats" and the "robber barons" while measuring the gap between the American Dream and the American Reality. As with "Nebraska," a now 30-years-old examination of Reagan's America, "Wrecking Ball" is an aural state-of-the-union address on the American condition at this moment.

But it's the melting pot of sounds contained here, from several excursions down E Street ("We Take Care of Our Own,""Land of Hope and Dreams,""Wrecking Ball") and a heady concoction of Seeger Sessions-like folk/Irish rave ups to Gospel and traces of hip hop and rap that give the record its oomph and power. And the key phrase here indeed is melting pot, not unlike America itself.

While it is at times angry (the Celtic stomp of "Death to My Hometown,") and desolate (the dirgelike "This Depression"), hope springs eternal. On the pointed, brilliant "Jack of All Trades," the chorus of "we'll be alright" lends a hard-won optimism to a ballad where the narrator is unsure of said optimism but finds the strength to soldier on anyway. Springsteen sings "There's a new day coming" in the astounding and moving hymn "Rocky Ground, the first Springsteen song with a rap break. I'm not sure if desperation ever sounded as jubilant as on "Shackled and Drawn," which sets itself up to be a live barnburner. "We Are Alive" ends the record with whistling and uplifting mariachi-accented "Ring of Fire" accompaniment.

It's all infectious, passionate and hook-laden.

But what of Springsteen, who is firmly part of the one percent, lecturing the monied elite about economic disparity? Responding to the criticisms that it's disingenuous at best that a rich man should throwing bricks at the rich, columnist and blogger Pete Chianca recently commented, "Did the fact that Steinbeck wasn't an Okie make 'The Grapes of Wrath" any less worthy" (or words to that affect)?

I agree. Why shouldn't Springsteen be a voice for the voiceless?" Chronicling the American condition has always been his job, but let's face it, ever since he hopped on the Obama bandwagon, the Right has leveled criticisms that he is nothing more than a limousine liberal. Springsteen, of course, made that bed, and has to live with it. But ironically, those who are yelling the loudest are the ones who most need to hear the message.

The characters in "Wrecking Ball" are not asking for handouts; they are asking for opportunity, with faith in what has long been the promise of America. For them, it ain't no sin for their belief that this faith will be rewarded.

Musically, some of the folk-inspired arrangements (fiddles, pennywhistles, even a banjo) echo the past, but this record feels thoroughly modern, and in some respects, timeless. And its spirituality (this the is most overtly spiritual record in Springsteen's oeuvre), only adds to its strengths. In fact, I'd goes as far as to say that this is first and foremost a gospel album.

"Wrecking Ball" may not be a perfect record: "You Got It" seems out of place and somewhat pedestrian, and the afore-mentioned "This Depression" falls flat, meandering along and never really taking off.

But overall, it is the perfect record for right now.

And that's all right with me.