Bruce Springsteen has long been a champion of the underdog, his generation’s answer to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Springsteen’s 17^th studio album, Wrecking Ball, is his angriest statement to date. Born out of disgust at corporate theft and the hardship faced by working people, it’s essentially the soundtrack of the Occupy movement. Says Springsteen: “My work has always been about judging the distance between American reality and the American Dream.”

            The album opens with the stirring “We Take Care of Our Own,” already adopted by President Obama’s re-election campaign. Other songs, like the whooping “Shackled and Drawn”’ and the elegiac “Death to My Hometown,” are battle cries against “fat cats” and “robber barons.” Meanwhile, rousing gospel fuels “Rocky Ground” and “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which features a final sax solo from Clarence Clemons, who died last June. Overall, Wrecking Ball is a spirited rebel yell from rock’s most reliable warrior.

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