Bruce Springsteen's return to the E Street Band has a huge sound yet there's often little to hear. Producer/mixer Brendan O'Brien provides a wall of rock so dense it's hard to distinguish what the crack musicians are playing.

The Boss' arrangements leave little room for solos. Saxophonist Clarence Clemons barely gets a note on tape.

The production also muffles Springsteen's singing. Magic is rife with anger and nostalgia, but the only way to confirm that is to check the lyrics in the sleeve notes.

He kicks off with Radio Nowhere, drawing parallels between bland modern music and western society's failure to ask tough questions. Springsteen demands a thousand guitars, pounding drums, voices speaking in tongues before hitting his chorus: 'I just want to feel some rhythm.'

Girls in Their Summer Clothes could be Side B of Springsteen's 1980s hit Glory Days. The commentary on ordinary America is what Springsteen does best.

Magic should sound effortless, direct and honest. But the listener is kept at a distance by the production. Rather than being pulled into the new album, we are forced to connect with the way it reminds us of Springsteen's old work.

In the old days it took a large band to entertain a stadium. However, the likes of Coldplay might want to explain to the Boss that less is more with modern recording technology - that he could have simply let his band play.