Bruce Springsteen is in a rennaisance of late middle age. In some ways, the Nineties were his Eighties: a period to struggle with direction after the debilitating nonsense of real superstardom. But this millennium he’s truly recovered: relaxed, relatively prolific and writing as fine songs as he ever has. Today he’s perhaps without peer amongst the superstars, as we watch them limp along, lean heavily on session players and producers, write piss-poor albums, fall for their own myths or even die.

Inevitably, critics will place Devils & Dust in a trio with Springsteen's other quiet albums Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad, but be aware that there’s significantly more production polish on Devils & Dust, as well as a wider palette of moods. Sonically, it mirrors the effect producer Brendon O’Brien also had on Springsteen’s full-volume work (on The Rising album) so might be better seen as halfway between the two styles, a bit like the overlooked Tunnel Of Love. While those two previous acoustic records were both unremittingly miserable masterpieces, trawling the dark and abandoned lives beneath the USA’s shining logos, this time around - although we get more of that in spades - there are several lighter (or just different) moments that stretch the record into widescreen territory. ‘Long Time Comin'’ is one of these, an upbeat twangy love song for expecting parents, while ‘All I’m Thinkin’ About’ is a car song and it’s a blast. It’s been a while since he did one of those.

Springsteen also gets sexier than anything since his early ‘70s youth, celebrating on-the-road lifestyle in ‘Maria’s Bed’ and even scoring his first ever Parental Guidance sticker, by explicitly fucking a hooker up the bum in ‘Reno’.

The dark only gets darker, though, and the best bits of Devils & Dust are as matt-black as a chalkboard cleaned for a new term - inevitable when you’ve pinned your flag to a liberal mast openly for the first time, only to get knocked out by four more years of oil-drenched theft and idiocy. Thank-you Christian fundamentalism, then, for this wonderful record, if nothing else of worth. Devils & Dust isn’t often specifically political but the stories do that job: ‘Black Cowboys’ and ‘The Hitter’ are powerful, timeless testimony and they won’t be forgotten for a long time. And when Springsteen narrates the plight of those with nothing as brilliantly as this, he’s writing protest music at its purest.

I think the edgy-yet-quiet sound of Devils & Dust brings Bruce Springsteen closer than ever to his harder-edged comrade Steve Earle - already a complex and useful career parallel. Unlike other American cultural statesmen burdened with great fame, Springsteen has been remarkably consistent in his empathy and politicking for the blue collar. Meanwhile, Earle - who never crossed over to mainstream success and stuggled for years with his own demons – is finally gaining long-deserved stature in this later period of his career. It’s almost like they’ve both recovered from themselves.