It seems like it’s been forever since September 11th. We’re nearing the one-year anniversary of the day that uprooted and reseeded American lives with implications as yet unpredictable.

Who could even begin to recall a time before then? Bearing that in mind, who could even begin to tell the story to somebody who didn’t live it?  Could you possibly convey the fear that you hadn’t yet felt as a proud and safe American? And your children, would they ever understand?

Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, his first studio outing with the E Street Band since Born in the USA, may be one of the most valuable tools we’ve yet received with which to explain ourselves. At this stage in his career, Springsteen has little left to prove.

From his early days as a Dylan du jour, to his own, well-earned superstar status, Bruce has been granted many titles. He’s been the voice of his generation, his demographic, his principle, his country and his world. Perhaps the mantel he wears most proudly is that of common man. On The Rising, it’s as if he can’t help but be universal.

He is the victim, the aggressor, the hero, the loved one and the bystander. He is hurt and hopeful, bleeding and healing, raging and filled with love. If we’re ever going to tell the story of September 11th, it will always have to be this honest.

Bruce Springsteen’s new album is the day after, and every day since. The first track, “Lonesome Day,” wakes up on September 12th in a new world, less several thousand beloved. The mid-tempo rocker, which infuses new E Street recruit Soozie Tyrell’s prominently-featured violin into its mix, is instantly memorable because you’ve been there before. In a surprisingly upbeat manner, the album opens with the assurance that “it’s alright.” If we can just push through these first few days.

In its best moments, The Rising conjures all of those brand-new peculiarities that made us shiver in the warmth of early autumn. “Waitin’ On a Sunny Day” perfectly captures the eerie beauty of that ugly day, when the sun shone picturesque through the smoky blue above New York City. The tune is absolutely infectious, bearing a slower, more studied likeness to “Glory Days.”

“Empty Sky” illustrates the record’s undeniable power, as it besets your spine with chills. The result is damn-near paralysis. If you can recall how many times you looked heavenward that day, only to see nothing but the deepest blue for the first time in your life, tainted not in the slightest by an airplane, all of the paradoxes therein will come rushing back to you.

“I want a kiss from your lips / I want an eye for an eye / I woke up this morning, to an empty sky,” Springsteen writes. There is an audible pain in Bruce’s unadorned voice that is underscored by his raw, biting harmonica fills.

The record is powered by enormous instrumental performances all around. The E Street Band is the best backing band that a singer/songwriter ever had, proving that its absence from Bruce recordings, nearly two decades long, was strictly an oversight unlikely to be repeated.

On “Countin’ On a Miracle” Bruce’s gritty voice is powered forward by Max Weinberg’s propulsive beating. Weinberg assures that years behind the Late Night kit have done nothing to subdue his thunder. As is the case with many of the album’s rockinest moments, the combination of Springsteen’s hopeful voice and Weingberg’s massive drumming make this piece downright anthemic to its impulse.

The production, headed up by 90’s heavy-alternative impresario Brendan O’Brien, most noted for his work with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the Black Crowes, is beefy and guitar heavy. This makes it quite a refreshing departure from the subdued dustbowl concentration of The Ghost of Tom Joad.

The electric arrangement provides an ideal forum for the work of Nils Lofgren and Steven Van Zandt. The two take turns shredding electric on tracks like the cool, dark “Further On (Up the Road)” and the Middle-Eastern inflected “Worlds Apart.”

The latter, a tinny, slick-sounding arrangement gives way to a full-throttle explosion that hearkens back to 1978’s Darkness On the Edge of Town. This is done while drawing its strength from a startlingly-relevant vitality. A searing, sub-Crazy Horse guitar solo appropriately mirrors the thematic distortion in the song’s intercultural love affair. The marriages of both the story’s characters and the music’s stylistic tendencies present one of Springsteen’s most ambitious desires here, to transcend.

This is never clearer than on a trio of songs at the bottom half of the record, “Mary’s Place,” “The Rising,” and “My City of Ruins.” Interspersed with gracefully devastating tracks, like “You’re Missing” and “Paradise,” which tells the story of a suicide bomber, the three guaranteed hits are demonstrative of the album’s sobering reality and redemptive power.

Bruce’s sweaty, inspired throat burning recalls images of heroism and triumph that supplemented tragedy in the headlines.

Clarence Clemons’ sax, making its long-desired return to the Springsteen wall of sound, lifts the refrains of these tracks to gloried heights. Clemons’ playing shifts effortlessly from cold running water to spiky coursing magma in a heartbeat.

Springsteen encourages celebration, reminding us of the necessity of carrying on. With Clemons’ robust blowing and an impossibly unforgettable hook, “Mary’s Place” challenges the fates, telling unseen forces to “let it rain.” and, in an act of defiance, promising that “we’re gonna have a party.” The jubilance is appropriate and welcome.

Admittedly, the album is not perfect.  Not for its lack of any desired effect, rather, for its inclusion of a few pieces that add very little. “Let’s Be Friends,” a sunny, middle-of-the-road soul tune is the least-captivating track on the album. The neo-gospel of “The Fuse,” though suggestive of future experimentation, is not particularly successful. At just a shade under 73 minutes long, the album is monumentally huge even without them.

With those slight exceptions, though, The Rising not only lives up to its hype, but to its overwhelming task. The innocent sorrow of millions, exploited so many times since September 11th for commercial and political purposes, finally has a cultural document worthy of its content and context.

Evocative without ever falling into the easy snares of sentimentality or manipulation, Springsteen has crafted a definitive tribute to this spot of history, absent of propaganda and cynicism. To have lived the experience from any angle, this album will send you spiraling back through all of the feelings you had then. With repeated spins, there is a possibility that it will help you to come to terms with some of them.

In the end, The Rising will drain you and fill you back up a dozen times. Bursting with the haunting echoes of shattering shop windows, exploding heat, deadening emptiness and insolent hope, it will stand forever inseparable from the well of emotion heaving in your chest that day. More than that, it will tell the story to those who don’t know it. Unbiased by the pretensions of self-interested purposefulness, it is an even-handed and nakedly human expression that will reverberate with simple truth and love years after the politics of hatred have faded.