Brooooooce!

Speculation is rife that Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are planning an Irish stop-off during their European tour which runs from October 14 to 27.

The Boss is also planning to return to this part of the world in the New Year when "the band will do multiple shows in major cities throughout the summer." Who mentioned the word "Slane"?

What's 100% certain is that July 30 sees the release of The Rising, the E Street-ers first album since 1984 which, in addition to the title-cut and lead single, features 'Lonesome Day', 'Into The Fire', 'Waitin' On A Sunny Day', 'Nothing Man', 'Countin' On A Miracle', 'Empty Sky', 'Worlds Apart', 'Let's Be Friends', 'Further On (Up The Road'), 'The Fuse', 'Mary's Place', 'You're Missing', 'Paradise' and 'My City Of Ruins'.

All but two of those were penned post-September 11.

"The songs I wrote sort of occur in that context,"

Springsteen confirms. "It's more of an emotional feeling that I felt – and that I felt was in the air at that time.

"It's a very powerful sound, just the intensity I wanted to capture doing anything with the band again. The guys are playing better than they did 15 years ago. There's a confidence."

Despite a strict international embargo, Hot Press has managed to hear a number of tracks and can confirm that they're very much in the classic Noo Joisey mould.

Springsteen is in particularly good lyrical form with the title-track boasting such couplets as: 'I see you Mary in the garden/In the garden of a thousand sighs/There's holy pictures of our children/Dancin' in a sky filled with light/May I feel your arms around me/May I feel your blood mix with mine/A dream of life comes to me/Like a catfish dancin' on the end of my line."