ALBUM REVIEWS
Fred Again.. has been on a journey. Over the last few years, he’s successfully – and seemingly effortlessly – pivoted from behind-the-scenes songwriter and producer (albeit one in demand by the likes of Ed Sheeran, BTS and Charli XCX) to the main event. He’s swiftly become one of the biggest names in electronic music and, just a few weeks ago, became the first dance act to headline Reading & Leeds following summers of steadily growing festival slots.
At the current peak of his ascent, the DJ and producer has returned with an album that plays to his strengths: making electronic music that appeals to the heart and soul as well as the feet. Like his ‘Actual Life’ series, the trilogy of albums that helped give him his breakthrough, ‘Ten Days’ is emotional and reflective, and gorgeously so.
Where ‘Actual Life’ was underpinned by a narrative of grief, this new record deals with another classic subject: the rise and fall of a relationship and the impact we have on each other’s lives, told through ten songs that each represent a different day over a period of time. “There’s been a lot of biggg mad crazy moments in the last year,” Fred (real name Fred Gibson) wrote on Instagram when he announced the album in August. “But basically all of these are about really very small quiet intimate moments. Some of them are like the most intensely joyful things I have felt, and some of them are the other side of things.”
That dichotomy is naturally felt across the two halves of ‘Ten Days’. On the first side, there are big swathes of blissed-out, balmy euphoria, like the Obongjayar-led ‘Adore U’, which brings the record bubbling to life, or ‘Just Stand There’, which is steered by Irish singer-songwriter Soak. The latter finds its guest vocalist delivering a spoken-word sermon on the power of someone saying “I love you”. “I just stand there and my one-bed apartment feels like a coliseum,” they share, comparing that feeling to the brilliantly specific “first crunch of Tayto cheese and onion crisps”. As they speak, Gibson’s production builds its layers up into something that reflects the heady rush of love: needling, messy, intricate, like it could collapse at any moment.
On the flip side, there’s the crumbling and dissolution, represented by the only true dud on the album in ‘I Saw You’. It suffers from appearing in the tracklist right after ‘Glow’ – one of the liveliest, truest dance tracks on the record that reunites Gibson with Four Tet and Skrillex, along with Duskus. But even without that rapturous song ahead of it, it feels like ‘I Saw You’ would fall flat anyway, as it lacks the spark of the album’s better offerings.
There are still some beautiful moments to be had in this half, though. ‘Where Will I Be’, a reworking of a 1995 Emmylou Harris song, mixes the poeticism of the original lyrics, emotively delivered by the country icon, with minimal, delicately utilised synths. The Joy Anonymous-featuring ‘Peace U Need’, meanwhile, offers an affecting idea: that even if things don’t turn out the way we’d hope, our legacy in someone’s life can still live on. “I let you take a piece of me,” its key line goes. “I hope you get the peace you need.”
‘Ten Days’ excels on two fronts – when Fred and his collaborators dig up a more interesting take on the influence of love, and when the producer turns his sights to the dancefloor. In the former category, there’s ‘Fear Less’, a stunning turn from Sampha that takes us into a scene in a car, anxieties soothed by a partner “on the passenger side”. In the latter, there’s ‘Places To Be’, the biggest mover on the album, guided by features from Anderson. Paak and Chika, and a beat akin to that of André 3000 and Kelis’ ‘Millionaire’. “There’s something about that song that just makes you wanna get up and bust a motherfucking move,” a voice declares in the middle – an incredibly accurate assessment.
It would be easy for Gibson to take the attention and acclaim surrounding him and return on this album with by-the-numbers, floor-filling bangers. Instead, he pushes deeper and comes up with something that’s both poignant and fun in equal measure – a solid gold record that leans into the little moments and produces pure, emotional magic that will ensure many more “biggg mad crazy” times in Fred Again..’s future ahead.
Bruce Springsteen was right. At the risk of simplifying the value of this impressive box set, giving away the main storyline of his new biopic, and flattening decades of mythmaking, the reality is just what Springsteen always claimed. Even when he tried the material with his closest collaborators, using some of the strongest songs he had ever written, the most powerful version of Nebraska is still the one he recorded at home in Colts Neck in January 1982. Just a lonely man in his early thirties with an acoustic guitar, a TASCAM PortaStudio, and an Echoplex, capturing solo demos for what he thought would be a full-band project. Everything that came after was an experiment.
But what an experiment it turned out to be. For those who don’t know the story, here it is in brief. After the success of his upbeat 1980 single “Hungry Heart” and a long streak of relentless touring and critical praise, Springsteen entered one of the most creatively intense chapters of his life. He began by writing the grim ballads and shadowy lullabies of Nebraska, which he then tried to recreate with the E Street Band and in solo studio sessions before ultimately choosing to release the home demos. He did no press and no tour, which left him free to keep writing, and that work became 1984’s massive commercial hit Born in the U.S.A. During that time, he tossed aside enough songs to fill multiple albums, later shared through collections like Tracks and Tracks II: The Lost Albums. He also found time to help revive the career of early rock’n’roll icon Gary U.S. Bonds, co-writing and co-producing two comeback records, contributing a Grammy-winning song to Donna Summer, and hitting the gym with enthusiasm.
It might sound like a golden moment, but for Bruce, it felt like a creative cage—the kind of brooding, restless chapter that inspires a filmmaker to cast Jeremy Allen White to play you on screen. The twist is that the most crucial moments, from the original Nebraska to the electric and explosive version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” happened quickly and naturally, before anyone could complicate the process. Unlike anything else in his official catalog, Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition offers a clear window into that moment. Within this tight collection is a sharper, more complete image of one of Springsteen’s most legendary and personal records—still the one he treasures most—along with rare insight into his creative rhythm.
The set includes a newly remastered version of the album, a disc of solo acoustic outtakes carrying the same raw emotion, the legendary Electric Nebraska sessions, and a live album and film capturing Springsteen performing the record start to finish in an empty New Jersey theater earlier this year. The live material feels reverent, with beautiful support from former Bob Dylan bandmate Larry Campbell. The remaster reveals that, despite the album’s association with the birth of lo-fi, the sound is richer and more intentional than much of what followed. Listen to the last half minute of “Atlantic City” through headphones and focus on how the acoustic guitars, mandolin, and background vocals fade away layer by layer. It’s a reminder of how much careful craft went into creating such stark beauty.
Unlike his earlier box sets for Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, this one isn’t about showcasing how many different paths he could have taken. It’s about sharpening the vision. Where Nebraska is known for its unbroken mood, Electric Nebraska jerks between heartland laments and roaring rock songs across its eight tracks. These takes feel like rough sketches more than finished recordings—mostly Springsteen on electric guitar and vocals, Max Weinberg on drums, and Garry Tallant on bass—hinting at an album that could have been more accessible and mainstream in 1982. And yet, this raw version of “Downbound Train,” with its clanging rhythms and unsettling bridge, may be one of the strangest things he ever put to tape.
It’s easy to see why Springsteen thought these sessions didn’t work. Versions of “Open All Night” and “Johnny 99,” which on the original album burn with desperate energy, sound here like something a bar band could fall into with a casual count-in and some good-natured rockabilly riffs. On one hand, it highlights how his delivery gives shape and gravity to his songwriting. (Compare the early acoustic “Thunder Road” to its triumphant album version for proof.) On the other hand, slipping into different musical skins was a key part of his process then. He could turn something as playful as “Pink Cadillac” into a moaning, shadowy reflection of itself, as if the character had returned to earth wrecked and hollow, fixated on one thought.
For devoted fans, these shifts are what make the box set essential: witnessing how songs like “Working on a Highway” transformed from a chilling ballad called “Child Bride” into a loud, laughing, raucous number. Some of the outtakes, like the quietly devastating country song “Losin’ Kind,” have been passed around unofficially for years. But this set also reveals two entirely unheard songs: “On the Prowl” and “Gun in Every Home.” In the first, he ends with a dizzying repetition of “searching,” drenched in slapback echo that mimics the sound of a live band. In the second, he paints a nightmarish portrait of suburban life and ends with a bare, defeated admission: “I don’t know what to do.”
Within a single song, Springsteen might take the role of a killer hiding in the dark or a runaway on the move, either escaping or facing the question of whether being caught is actually a strange kind of salvation. That’s the point of sitting in the dark: you can’t see the exit. Yet sometimes he caught brief glimpses of where it all might lead. Along with the original demo tape, Springsteen sent a letter to his manager, Jon Landau. He went through each track, detailing the grim subject matter, floating arrangement ideas, and occasionally letting a sliver of optimism shine through.
He scribbled a note next to “Born in the U.S.A.,” which appears here in two early forms: a heavy acoustic blues and a full-band rocker stripped of its later synths, leaving no doubt about how the narrator feels. “Might have potential,” he wrote. That small spark of belief carried him through. He knew these songs would take work, and that truly understanding them would take time. But he also trusted that at the end of each hard-earned day, there would still be magic in the night.
