Okay “All I’m Thinkin’ About” is great great great. I LOVE when Bruce pushes his voice in unnatural ways like this.

So is WB Bruce saying “Sorry about that last record. Let’s have fun!” or something? It’s like the complete opposite.

Not super exciting so far.

Not sure if I'm reading you right but "Wrecking Ball" followed "Working on a Dream," not "Devils and Dust." Same logic could apply, but I seemed to remember you (like me) were a fan of "WOAD."

"Wrecking Ball" has a few winners, but a few of them ("Land of Hope and Dreams" and "American Land") are rehashes. I like "We Are Alive," "Death to My Hometown," and "Shackled and Drawn" a lot. The title track I find insufferably corny, a career low.

"Devils and Dust" has some superbly written songs on it, but Bruce's delivery is so dry and noncommittal on most of them that it's a really dreary album to sit through, I'd imagine impossibly so if you have no taste for acoustic/folk or narrative-driven music. "Tom Joad" is kind of the same way.

I tend to enjoy D&D practically for those reasons and 'Joad' as well, I just take the album listen under the guise of an almost beaten man just hanging on; very much the opposite of Bruce's stage presence during a full band gig. That aspect just draws me in a bit further. Funnily I thought of the D&D acoustic tour on the ride in and tossed on the 'Love, Tears & Mystery' comp when I got in to work this morning. Storytellers was around this time too which I thoroughly enjoy and recommend.