Solid Springsteen, with a lighter heart

Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream begins outrageously, with an eight-minute spaghetti Western of a song called "Outlaw Pete" that gallops under the power of soaring strings and driving E Street Band guitars.

It's an Ennio Morricone-influenced epic - Springsteen appeared on a 2007 tribute to the Italian film composer - that announces itself from the get-go as a lark. ("He robbed a bank in his diapers and little bare baby feet," Springsteen sings. "All he said was, 'Folks, my name is Outlaw Pete.' ") And it's a throwback to the sprawling, shaggy-dog story-songs that populated his early '70s LPs like The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.

"Outlaw Pete" signals that Working on a Dream (Columbia ***) is a different kind of album from Springsteen and the E Street Band, who will perform April 28-29 at the soon-to-be-demolished Wachovia Spectrum, where he first played in June 1973. (Tickets go on sale Monday at 10 a.m.) They'll also play the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa on Sunday.

The Boss' 17th studio effort, and fifth in what has turned out to be his most productive decade, is largely free of the burden of portent and significance that has distinguished much of his serious-minded body of work. Those could be seen in the Sept. 11-inspired The Rising (2002) and Magic (2007), which raged against what the songwriter characterized as the corrupt nature of George W. Bush's America.

By contrast, Dream is marked by a lightness and a sense of acceptance. It's all there in the song titles: "My Lucky Day," "What Love Can Do," "Surprise, Surprise." Springsteen and knob-twiddler Brendan O'Brien introduced a new wrinkle in the E Street sound on Magic with Beach Boys- and Beatles-inspired Wall of Sound productions such as "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." They return to that on the new album's "Kingdom of Days," and "This Life" while adding Byrdsy 12-string guitar chiming to their bag of tricks in "Surprise."