is that at no point does he give vent to the anger felt by so many Americans: the hunger for revenge. The music is often fierce in its execution, but in essence it is a requiem for those who perished in that sudden inferno, and those who died trying to save them. Springsteen grandly salutes their innocence and their courage, and holds out a hand to those who mourn them, who seek the comfort of an explanation for the inexplicable:

Picture's on the nightstand, TV's on in the den
Your house is waiting . . . for you to walk in
But you're missing, you're missing

It's wonderful to hear these finely calibrated lyrics borne aloft by the E Street Band, brought back at last for a record that rocks as broadly as Born in the U.S.A., the last studio album for which they all gathered, eighteen years ago. However heavy of heart the new songs may be, this three-guitar incarnation of the band (with Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Springsteen -- never a slouch in the screaming-guitar department himself) propels them with resounding power. Like Born in the U.S.A. before it, The Rising sounds unlike any other record of its time; in an era of rock murk and heavy synthetics, it flaunts its hard, bright guitars and positively walloping beats.

Springsteen addresses the spiritual dislocations of the World Trade Center attack - and the unquestioning bravery of the rescuers who lost their lives in it - with "Into the Fire," a song that starts out with the simplicity of a white-gospel hymn ("I need your kiss/But love and duty called you someplace higher"), then blossoms into a luminous anthem:

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love bring us love

Elsewhere, Springsteen acknowledges the fury that welled up in many bereft New Yorkers after the destruction of Manhattan's two most towering landmarks: "I want a kiss from your lips/I want an eye for an eye/I woke up this morning to an empty sky." And in the lush, haunted ballad "Nothing Man," he seems to give voice to the emptiness and incomprehension felt by some of that day's surviving heroes:

I never thought I'd live to read about myself
In my hometown paper
How my brave young life was forever changed
In a misty cloud of pink vapor

Not every song on the album was written in the wake