Bruce Springsteen is a bit angry. And it’s good for his music.

The new single — “We Take Care of Our Own” — soars and seethes, and in the process washes away the taste of his last, and weakest, record, “Working on a Dream.”

Slate discussed the record earlier this weak. David Haglund quoted “someone close to Bruce Springsteen” calling Wrecking Ball “the angriest album he’s ever made.” Haglund then quotes from the single’s second verse:

   From Chicago to New Orleans
   From the muscle to the bone
   From the shotgun shack to the Superdome
   We yelled “help” but the cavalry stayed home
   There ain’t no-one hearing the bugle blown

Haglund’s response:

I’d say that’s fairly angry. The chorus—“Wherever this flag’s flown / We take care of our own”—sounds rousingly optimistic, but may be intended, at least in part, ironically; that would be a familiar approach for Springsteen.

The Katrina reference, meanwhile, recalls another comment from that Springsteen acquaintance quoted above: The Boss apparently “wrote and recorded the majority of the album before the Occupy movements started, so he’s not just setting headlines to music.”

The B-side for this single (on vinyl, at least) is “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a 1990s-era Springsteen tune. Since Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine apparently features on Wrecking Ball, I’m guessing it’s the version of that song he memorably contributed to. Hope so.

I hope so too. Wrecking Ball is his first release in the post-Big Man-era, a loss that could have stripped the passion from the music. The Boss bought into the optimism of Barack Obama’s election win, allowing it to soften his music and cut short the momentum of the truly great Magic album.

If the alum is like the single, we can expect a set of muscular, political tunes and a return to relevance for the Steinbeck of rock and roll.