While several of the albums that make up Tracks II: The Lost Albums comprise songs from separate sessions, Perfect World is the only one not set out as a stand-alone album, more a collection of songs recorded over a near-twenty year period and set should aside just such an occasion arise. It’s also the album in the collection that the marketing was able to highlight as the most ‘obvious’ Bruce set, one that evokes the ‘E Street flavoured rock’ that would make it an easier sell, perhaps.

Except, it’s not. Not really. In contrast to Tracks, where the bulk of the material was band-backed, Tracks II is very much a series of albums that find Springsteen exploring his solo voice and sound. Perfect World is no exception and the presence of the E Street Band is minimal. There’s no ‘lost’ full band songs from the post-reunion sessions or those aborted pre-Rising recordings. Perhaps those will grace Tracks III. Fittingly enough, then, Perfect World sits in the same category as the final disc in the first Tracks in as much as while there’s nothing fundamentally bad about these songs, there’s nothing here that makes you feel like it would’ve made a stronger inclusion on the album from whose sessions it was born. And, much like that disc, most of Perfect World finds Bruce working either solo or with ‘other’ musicians.

It’s easy to see why, in the build up to its release marketing for Tracks II made so much of Perfect World being the box’ ‘rock’ album – perhaps to convince anyone sitting on the fence about splashing out a mortgage instalment on the package that there’d be a ‘business as usual’ set to soothe. But because it’s so typical Brooooce, it’s pretty ‘meh’ as a result. Again, there’s nothing on Perfect World that’s particularly bad, more that it feels like Boss on Autopilot for the most part. Oh, and it’s very much a Ron Aniello production too… to the point that if you were to ask AI to create a late-period Bruce Springsteen song, you’d probably end up with something similar to many of the songs here. They make all the right noises, hit all expected tropes but lack that bit of magic that would make them genuinely memorable.

The opening volley – ‘I’m Not Sleeping’ (which had the fitting misfortune to arrive while I was battling one of my perennial bouts of insomnia), ‘Idiot’s Delight’ and ‘Another Thin Line’ are all cowrites with Joe Grushecky and while I’m glad to be able to hear them, they’re just that – great Joe Grushecky songs of the heartland rock variety. ‘Rain In The River’ may well be among the hardest-hitting beats Springsteen has put to tape and songs like ‘The Great Depression’ and ‘Perfect World’ are all pleasant enough. ‘If I Could Only Be Your Lover’ is one of the albums outliers in as much as it’s a bruising, burnished, late-career gem that I’ve had on repeat many a time since – it feels surprisingly at home with the material from Streets of Philadelphia Sessions – and those songs that feature E Street Band members (there’s no full E Street Band backed material here) are immediately propelled by their involvement and, as is often the case with that fourth disc on Tracks too, make you wonder what they could’ve bought to the rest of the material here.

Look, I’m no E Street purist but if there’s a group of musicians that you’ve got such undeniable natural chemistry with that bring even your weaker songs to a new level… then songs with session musicians or, worse, where your producer plays all the instruments directly into the board instead, are going to suffer in comparison. Especially when they’re grouped together on the same disc.

Least: Blind Man

Perfect World was the first of the box I cued up after Philadelphia Sessions and it kept me company on a commute or two. Except for ‘Blind Man’. Aside from my disappointment that it wasn’t a cover of Aerosmith’s 1994, I never found a hook in it enough to keep me away from that ‘skip’ button.

Most: You Lifted Me Up

Now this is much better. Any song where you can spot Max Weinberg keeping the beat from the word go is, if you’ll excuse the link, going to be lifted up immediately. Same rule for Steven Van Zandt’s backing vocal harmony. Plus, beneath my cynical and sarcastic wrapping I’m a soppy bastard at heart and these seemingly light, un-laboured and genuine odes to love like this that Springsteen does so well like are going to sit well with me.

Western Stars, when it arrived in 2019 it was the fruition of a years-long process that – judging by the evidence afforded by the interviews and commentary around Tracks II: The Lost Albums – began in 2010 when Springsteen began working with Ron Aniello. It went through many iterations and sessions before Springsteen found the style he was looking for. Some of those sessions found their way to one of the other ‘lost’ albums on this set, Somewhere North Of Nashville. A huge glut of them, however, have been rounded up onto the sprawling Twilight Hours.

Perhaps the most unexpected of the set, this one finds Springsteen leaning fully into mood, orchestration, and emotional understatement. Where Western Stars still carried traces of pop structure and narrative propulsion, Twilight Hours drifts instead through late-night spaces – hotel bars, empty streets, the moments when reflection replaces momentum. It’s music shaped as much by atmosphere as by songcraft.

Stylistically, Twilight Hours draws heavily from mid-century orchestral pop and noir-tinged balladry, with lush strings, restrained rhythms, and the influence of classic crooners and cinematic arrangements drip off the album by the bucket load. How much you’ll enjoy it depends, really, on how much you enjoy the classic Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs of the 1960s that Bruce is gunning for here.

Sadly, for me, that’s not a lot. This is the set that it’s taking me the longest to get into and find pleasure in. Where Springsteen has dabbled with ‘genre’ in the past, it’s always felt that his songs have been stripped and arranged to suit whereas here, like the weaker moments of Western Stars, it often feels like Bruce has written a bulk-order of ‘Rhinstone-cowboy-style’ songs and Aniello has slapped as many schmatlzy effects as his pro-tools could cope with. It too often leans into pastiche rather than style.

However, much like Western Stars, there are moments when it really works. It’s still a fucking Bruce Springsteen album after all. Many of the arrangements are superb, and Springsteen’s vocals, in their subdued longing, have never sounded richer or fuller as he explores themes of aging, regret, and emotional distance. For me, though, on an hour that spans nearly an hour, it’s a bit of a hard, monotonous slog. If I wanted to listen to Burt Bacharach, I’d listen to Burt Bacharach.

Least: I’ll Stand By You

I could’ve gone for any number of songs here. The overly trite and obvious Sunday Love or September Kisses…. I mean, this is the guy that put a lyric like ‘And she’s so pretty that you’re lost in the stars. As you jockey your way through the cars’ onto one of the least memorable songs on Born To Run, crooning some of the most banal shite on some of these songs. However, ‘I’ll Stand By You’ takes the ‘odd one out’ card for not only was it a bit of a flat-note when previously randomly included on the Blinded By The Light soundtrack, here it falls just as flat. A lullaby previously written for and offered up for a Happy Rotter soundtrack, it’s overly saccharine and out of place here too.

Most: High Sierra

One of those songs that feels closest to classic Bruce but delivered with an unexpected tenderness. This is one of, and the finest, those moments where the concept, the style and the song all match up and soar. While it could perhaps do with a little trimming, it’s a fantastic narrative and Story Time Bruce is always going to get more points than the Insipid, Elevator Music Bruce that turns up on too many of these songs.