Springsteen scales down for his latest album

Bruce Springsteen’s 19th album, “Devils & Dust,” will be released April 26 and be followed by a tour, the 55-year-old singer announced Wednesday.

The stripped-down, 12-song collection features tracks such as “Maria’s Bed,” “Silver Palomino” and “Jesus Was an Only Son.” Brendan O’Brien, who worked with Springsteen on his last CD, “The Rising,” returned to produce the album. Springsteen’s compatriots in the E Street Band did not join him, however, and the singer said his tour would be either a solo acoustic affair or would feature him with a small band in theaters and other small venues.

Some of the tracks have been in Springsteen’s concert tour songbook in recent years; others are new. The title song was written around the start of the war in Iraq, but the landscape of the music is closer to home. “A lot of it is set in the West, in what feels like a rural setting,” Springsteen said in a statement Wednesday.

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Geoff Boucher