Three years after the band’s rededication, Springsteen’s twelfth studio album is the first E Street album in 18 years, since 1984’s Born the U.S.A. The Rising is also an achievement of another kind: a moving artistic response to the attacks of September 11, 2001 that connects with a mass audience and critics alike. Kurt Loder writes in Rolling Stone, “The heart sags at the prospect of pop stars weighing in on the subject of September 11th. Which of them could possibly transmute the fiery horror of that day with the force of their art, or offer up anything beyond a dismal trivialization?  The answer, it turns out, is Bruce Springsteen. With his new album, The Rising, Springsteen wades into the wreckage and pain of that horrendous event and emerges bearing fifteen songs that genuflect with enormous grace before the sorrows that drift in its wake.” Debuting at #1 on the Billboard chart, The Rising goes gold in its first week, led by its powerful title track, which presents both the real-world terror confronted by first responders and a spiritually transcendent “dream of life.”