An early review from The Telegraph ^_^

 

 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/neil_mccormic...n_the_new_album

 

Neil McCormick

 

I got to hear the new U2 album in its complete and final form. I can't say too much about it now, for fear that the skylight of my attic office would explode in a shower of glass and a black pvc clad figure descend from wires to seize my computer, leaving behind only a pair of blue tinted wraparound sunglasses.

 

Actually, I'd be more likely to find a drum stick rammed up my hard drive. Bono is the least of my worries. If it was up to him, the U2 singer would take this album around to every house in the country and sell it door to door with a money back guarantee. He says 'No Line In The Horizon' is the album U2 always wanted to make. He always was an excitable fellow, but he might actually be right.

 

So what can I tell you without infringing copyright? It took two listens to find my way into it, which has to be good a thing. It is dense, twisty, shiny, modern pop music, a big mash up of Eno ambience, Edge electricity, rhythm and soul. There are verses and choruses, though not necessarily in that order (and quite often its hard to tell which is which). It doesn't feel the need to hit you over the head, but has the Ninja confidence to sneak up and take you unawares. It makes love like its making war. It hasn't frontloaded all its big guns. There is a surge in the middle perfectly timed to quell any uprising, and a killer twist at the end. It could be the glittering sonic mind meld of pop rock and soul that Zooropa wanted to be. Or maybe, like Bono, I'm am just prone to exaggeration.

 

Bono says I listen to their new albums like a bodyguard. He is probably right. I approach with trepidation, protective of the band's place in my heart and ready to defend them should they drop their guard or their standards. Fortunately, they haven't had to call on my fighting skills yet (though we have had a couple of skirmishes).

 

A disclaimer: look, I am well aware there are a lot of people out there who find The Man Who Saved The World (as he is known to close friends such as the Pope) (only kidding) a pompous, egotistic, over-bearing, messianic megalomaniac (I think that about covers it), and furthermore consider U2 to be overblown, over-rated stadium rockists with nary a hint of nuance or subtlety. Some of you read this blog and leave derogatory messages every time I mention Bono's name. Well, get over it. Yes, I like U2. Yes, I went to school with them and was a fan from before they were even U2, but only because they were great then, and they are great now.

 

Here's the thing: I am not alone in holding them in high esteem. They have been together for over 30 years and sold 130 million albums around the world. Many key rock bands of the moment (Coldplay, The Killers, Arcade Fire, Kings Of Leon, Keane) openly incorporate their influence, and covet their slot at the top of the pile. Brandon Flowers of the Killers recently told me, "They're unbelievable, but they're getting old ... It feels like it's time." On this evidence, anyone who wants to shift U2 off their pedestal is going to have to take it by force.

 

:dance: :dance:

From u2.com

 

http://www.u2.com/news/index.php?mode=full&news_id=2287

 

Thoughts of DJ Dave Fanning on the new album

 

'Sounds like you’ve heard the album too?'

 

I have, just a few times though and it’s hard to give you first impressions because I need to hear it in the car and in the bath. But certainly you know in hearing it that they remain a great creative force as a band, what I’m not sure of yet is whether it is the beginning of a new sequence of albums or the third in a series that began with All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

It’s a big record though and I was struck by the running order, that tracks 2 (Magnificent), 3 (Moment of Surrender), and 4 (Unknown Caller) alone are almost twenty minutes of music. Normally you find longer songs at the end of a record, but these come before you even reach Get On Your Boots. Some of the lyric writing seemed more personal than usual to me, and there’s lots of buried songs on there too, songs that will grow on you – like if you ask your average U2 fan to sing ‘A Man and A Woman’ or ‘Crumbs Under your Table’ from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb they might not be able to, but they were gems. The album has plenty of songs like that, songs to return to.

 

There was a time when they let you choose the single release.

 

Yes, it’s hard to believe that thirty years ago they came into my show, all four of them every night for a week, and we played three of their songs a night and asked the audience to decide what the single should be. Out of Control got it, with Stories for Boys as a b-side and we threw in Boy-Girl too. I remember a thousand copies of the single were pressed and we launched it at Windmill Lane and about 15 people turned up.

I’d been playing their demo tapes since being on pirate stations in 1978, I just got behind them, I never even knew they would get as far as another demo. I’m not brilliant, I couldn’t predict anything, I was more into The Undertones at the time but U2 just seemed to be going along the same lines as me and I liked them.

 

Ever since you’ve always had the world premiere of a new U2 single from a new album.

 

I’ve had the world exclusive ever since, Paul McGuinness always likes to start a new campaign with me. I asked him about it this morning, he said he thought I was a good luck charm. But my feeling on this album is that while it’s been a really long wait, it is worth the wait. They were the biggest band of the eighties, then they dominated the nineties and now they’re writing a whole new chapter in another decade - not young anymore but still looking very cool. I think of all the 17 year olds who are going to buy this record and it will only be the third or fourth record they have bought - they’re still right up there.

 

One other song that really stood out for you ?

 

Stand Up Comedy – the nearest thing they’ve ever done to Led Zeppelin. But I could change my mind, wait till I’ve heard it in the bath a few times. One - from Achtung Baby - never hit me for months.

:w00t: I can´t :w00t: wait :w00t: :w00t: :w00t: :yahoo:

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/mu...71.html?start=3

 

The new U2 album: track by track

 

 

http://i42.tinypic.com/anfqzo.jpg

 

Adam Clayton signs autographs outside the band's Dublin studio this week

 

 

 

Thursday January 29 2009

 

The first U2 album since November 2004 received an exclusive first play in Dublin last night.

 

The Residence private members club on St Stephen's Green in Dublin hosted a playback of the eagerly awaited album.

 

It has been the longest gap between releases in the band's entire career.

 

Media and record company personnel gathered to hear 'No Line on the Horizon' in full in the club's luxurious surroundings. The quartet's 12th studio album will be released in Ireland on February 27, a full weekend before its worldwide release.

 

Sessions for the album were recorded in Fez, Morocco, before moving on to the band's Dublin studio on Hanover Quay, New York's Platinum Sound and Olympic Studios in London.

 

The album will be available in five different formats, including vinyl, standard CD, a deluxe box set and a special edition with a limited 64-page magazine.

 

The lead single 'Get On Your Boots' will be available both as a digital download and on physical formats from February 13. The download, CD and 7in vinyl will all be priced at 99 cent, a first for a single release in this country.

 

The accompanying video for 'Get On Your Boots' will receive its world premiere exclusively here on www.independent.ie tomorrow at 5.00pm.

 

1 'No Line on the Horizon'

 

The opening title track kicks off with a crunchy, distorted guitar riff from the Edge.

 

2 'Magnificent'

 

Dancey electro flourishes introduce an atmospheric track with moody leanings.

 

3 'Moment of Surrender'

 

This particular moment of surrender sees a slowing down of the tempo and some delicate, bluesy guitar playing from the Edge.

 

4 'Unknown Caller'

 

More intricate guitar fretwork that builds into a mid-tempo rocker featuring an organ and one of the album's lushest productions.

 

5 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight'

 

Chiming guitar intro, a rousing Bono falsetto and the lyric, "Every generation has a chance to change the world".

 

6 'Get On Your Boots'

 

The belting single that shot straight to the top of the Irish airplay charts here stands as the halfway tune. The video will be premiered tomorrow on www.independent.ie from 4.55pm.

 

7 'Stand Up Comedy'

 

Grungy pop with strident drumming from Larry Mullen.

 

8 'Fez -- Being Born'

 

On first listen, easily the album's most adventurous and challenging track with ambient synthy hooks.

 

9 'White as Snow'

 

A stark, stripped back and striking tune with imploring vocals.

 

10 'Breathe'

 

Starts off with a trip-hop beat and cello playing before transforming into an all-out rocker.

 

11 'Cedars of Lebanon'

 

A reflective parting glass for album number 12, finishing on the line, "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you".

 

The album is now available to pre-order on iTunes.

 

From the News of the Screws

 

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/xs...e-Celeb-XS.html

 

U2 - On The Horizon - First review

 

By Dan Wootton, 31/01/2009

 

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. . .

 

. . . well I have BONO, because the record of the year is On The Horizon — and I’ve had an XSclusive first listen to it.

 

The biggest band in the universe U2 are back and, I’m pleased to say, at their best. :w00t:

 

This week I’ve been loving their stomping new album at CelebXS HQ.

 

Two years in the making, this one and despite recording in Morocco and adding a hint of middle-eastern influence, I can report that the Irish lads remain instantly recognisable.

 

No Line On The Horizon marks a cracking return to form, something the whole music industry desperately wants and needs. :yahoo:

 

It’s been (a long) four years since their last album, the underwhelming :o How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

 

But believe me, it’s been well worth the wait. The band recorded 60 songs which they then whittled down to a stellar final 11 for this their twelfth studio album.

 

Overall, the band have made an effort to tone down their usual big rock sound for something a little bit more bluesy.

 

But there are still loads of great moments — like THE EDGE’s cracking guitar. Magnificent will end up a No1 hit and yet another trademark U2 stadium anthem.

 

According to Bono, the seven- minute slow paced Moment Of Surrender is the best thing the four-piece have written.

 

But for me, the most upbeat (and brilliant) pop moment is the danceable I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight. Bono has decided to write in the third person for the first time on this disc, not out until March.

 

So on the closing ballad Cedars Of Lebanon, the frontman imagines he’s a war reporter. It’s stirring stuff and a great way to end a great comeback album.

 

Bono said: “It’s not like anything we’ve ever done before. We don’t think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either.”

 

He added: “We’ve hit a rich song writing vein and we don’t want to stop. This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again.”

 

Track by Track

 

1. NO LINE ON THE HORIZON — punk rock epic

 

2. MAGNIFICENT — er, says it all

 

3. MOMENT OF SURRENDER — seven-minute wonder

 

4. UNKNOWN CALLER — Middle-East taster

 

5. I’LL GO CRAZY IF I DON’T GO CRAZY TONIGHT — poptastic

 

6. GET ON YOUR BOOTS — kickin’

 

7. STAND UP COMEDY — Bono message

 

8. FEZ: BEING BORN — least-fave track

 

9. WHITE AS SNOW — simple. Breathtaking

 

10. BREATHE — happy chorus

 

11. CEDARS OF LEBANON — ballad to end the album

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/U/U2/200...324421-sun.html

 

U2's new album clips reviewed

By DARRYL STERDAN -- Sun Media

 

U2's "No Line on the Horizon" rises on March 3 in North America.

 

It only takes a few seconds to make a good first impression -- or a colossally bad mistake.

 

Wal-Mart may have pulled off both at once this weekend when the retail behemoth posted 22-second clips of all the songs on U2's upcoming album -- No Line on the Horizon, out March 3 -- onto its website. Naturally, the clips were quickly removed -- but not before they got on their boots and rampaged to the outer horizons of the interwebs.

 

Horrifying PR nightmare or Machiavellian marketing scheme? We'll let you be the judge. We'll stick to what we do: Making half-baked snap judgments about music. Here are our first impressions of the new U2 tracks.

 

No Line on the Horizon

 

A moody opener -- if the noisy keyboard-and-guitar drone and heartbeat-thump backbeat are any sign. Things seem to get prettier in the chorus, though.

 

Magnificent

 

 

Edge's chiming melodies and choppy strumming, Larry Mullen's snare rolls, Bono wailing the title -- this is closer to typical U2. But maybe a little bouncier and poppier.

 

Moment of Surrender

 

Just layers of churchy keyboards set to a sparse, slow-burning groove. There are no vocals in this clip, so your guess is as good as ours where it goes from here.

 

Unknown Caller

 

Glistening guitar arpeggios give way to another low-key beat -- and some indistinct falsetto crooning from Bono. Another ballad? Unknown.

 

I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

 

Finally, some lyrics. And OK ones: "Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot," sings Bono. Too bad he's singing them over yet another gently jangly backdrop. It's got a bit more energy than the last few cuts, but come on -- where's the rock?

 

Get On Your Boots

 

Finally, here it is: U2 revamps Pump it Up for the disco-rock masses. So far, this is easily the most upbeat track.

 

Stand Up Comedy

 

The band serves up a dash of slow-rolling funk, while Bono seems to be urging us to "stop helping God across the road like a little old lady." Um, sure.

 

Fez - Being Born

 

It starts off all atmopheric and woozy -- with Bono chanting "Let me hear the sound" in the background -- then shifts midway into something groovier. Could be interesting.

 

White as Snow

 

With its spooky ambiance and plucked acoustic guitar, this ballad sounds fittingly wintry -- and just a teeny bit like Radiohead.

 

Breathe

 

A sweeping, swaggering blues-rock waltz with a touch of '70s Zeppish grandeur. It sounds promising. Until Bono announces "I wasn't going to buy just anyone's cockatoo, so why would I invite a complete stranger into my home? Would you?" WTF? :blink:

 

Cedars of Lebanon

 

"Woke up in my clothes in a dirty heap," Bono rasps over the umpteenth smoky, ambient soundscape. After all those ballads, you'd think they'd go out with a bang, not a whimper. Apparently not -- but time will tell.

:dance: I can't wait to hear the new album :yahoo: :yahoo:

 

some guy on the radio, he has heard it all and says its brill! :yahoo:

Was it maybe Bono? :unsure:

FROM

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...5006024,00.html

 

 

U2 takes a few risks

Cameron Adams

February 12, 2009 12:00am

 

WHEN you're the biggest band in the world, you're entitled to take a few risks. U2's new album No Line on the Horizon. READ THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN REVIEW.

 

No Line on the Horizon is U2's experimental album. The songs are long, moody and not exactly radio-friendly.

 

Which means it's precisely the kind of album U2 needed after 2004's water-treading but stadium-filling How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

 

Hearing the album in full, the divisive Get On Your Boots was an ideal first single - the kind of song that wouldn't last 10 seconds on commercial radio stations if it weren't the new U2 song.

 

Despite the musical diversions, the Edge's trademark guitar work injects the U2 DNA throughout.

 

The fantastic title track has a wall of distorted guitar that recalls a previous envelope-pushing moment, The Fly.

 

There's a brief flashback to the feel of The Unforgettable Fire on Fez - Being Born and Magnificent sounds like a single (once it has had a radio edit) with that signature Where the Streets Have No Name chugging guitar and drum momentum.

 

Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois leave their fingerprints all over the atmospheric Moment of Surrender - cathedral organs and a heavy bass groove spoiled only by Bono mentioning an ATM.

 

In an age of short attention spans, U2 have put together an old-fashioned album, not just a bunch of singles.

 

This album is likely to lose the casual U2 fan, but will reconnect with the faithful.

 

No Line on the Horizon is released on February 27

 

:unsure:

 

http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=7573

 

 

U2 No Line On The Horizon, A First Impression

 

by Paul Cashmere - February 11 2009

 

Undercover was privy to a private listening session for the U2 album today and it is damn good. Although it is not “the next big step for U2”, it is very much the sound of U2 you love.

 

That is thanks mostly to the joint production resource of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois and additional production by Steve Lillywhite. All three had similar duties on 1984’s ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ and the sound I am hearing from ‘No Line On The Horizon’ is very much sourced from that work.

 

The album will conjure up the past when you hear it, mainly because the production team individually have worked on many of the U2 albums since ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ and they each bring their own sound to U2.

 

While I’ve only had one listen to the album from beginning to end, my first impression is that this album won’t rock the boat with U2 fans. If you loved the old stuff, you will like the new.

 

Track by track:

 

No Line On The Horizon – This one is techno, thump. In sound it sits somewhere between 1993’s ‘Zooropa’ and 1994’s ‘Pop’.

 

Magnificent – And The Edge show up for work! This is one of the few songs on the album that sounds like any of their recent work. This one wouldn’t be out of place on 2000’s ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’.

 

Moment Of Surrender –This is the album’s epic. It is one of those slow, building tracks and fits with ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ in sound.

 

Unknown Caller – Another slow one, I was thinking ‘The Joshua Tree’ as a first impression. While ‘The Joshua Tree’ came initially to mind, there is something strangely “Broadway show” about this in parts.

 

I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight – damn, Bono beat some old country guy to the title. It sounds like it should be a country and western song but isn’t. In fact, it is one of the rockier songs on the album. Think, ‘Rattle and Hum’ album for a fit.

 

Get Your Boots On – Well, you already know this one. 60’s meets the Escape Club. (Go on, admit it, you thought of ‘Wild Wild West’ when you heard it the first time as well).

 

Stand Up Comedy – Funky. It would sound good on ‘Rattle and Hum’.

 

FEZ – Being Born – This is the most different song on the album from anything else they have done. In fact, the production technique is more in line of some of the experimentations George Martin did on later Beatles. It starts out atmospheric (Eno) but gets a bit of grunt happening.

 

White As Snow – Another slow one. ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ for fit. There are some nice Irish influences in the song structure as well. I can’t say Irish trad music has been very prevelant in the U2 sound before like it is here.

 

Breathe – An uptempo, rock song. A good one for ‘Achtung Baby’.

 

Cedars Of Lebanon – Bono really sings on this ballad. Its dreamy and laidback, a mellow end to the album. It is again very ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ in sound.

 

‘No Line On The Horizon’ was recorded at U2 HQ Dublin, Raid El Yacout in Fez, Platinum Sound Recordings Studios in New York and Olympic Studios in London.

 

It will be released at the end of this month.

 

 

:w00t:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle5726724.ece

 

How I learnt to love U2 (almost)

The Forrest Gumps of rock are back on the beat

 

Stephen Dalton

 

Like most right-thinking people, I grew up hating U2. :arrr: You probably recognise the symptoms. Queasy unease when Bono claims ownership of the Third World's suffering from a stadium stage or TV screen; nausea when he's pictured with his arms around Bush or Blair, who his own drummer calls “war criminals”. And that wet thud of disappointment when U2's breathlessly hyped new album is just as stodgy and Coldplay-esque as the last.

 

And yet, annoyingly, I'm strangely excited about their latest album, No Line On The Horizon. Perhaps, after 25 years of qualified loathing and grudging admiration, I've learnt to stop worrying and love U2.

 

During my teens and early twenties, U2 were easy to hate, with their windswept mullets and bombastic battle anthems. Their music was monochrome and sexless, all windy platitudes disguised as Big Themes. They also seemed suspiciously keen to co-opt half a century of pop history and global struggle for their own self-promotional ends: from Elvis to Joy Division, Billie Holiday to Martin Luther King, African famine to the fall of communism.

 

But superimposing yourself on to great historical events doesn't confer greatness by association. You just look like ambulance chasers. The Forrest Gumps of rock.

 

I first wrote about U2 in NME in the early 1990s, soon after their Achtung Baby album. In this period there was a big shift in the band's musical hinterland, from wide-open, hope-filled vistas to nocturnal cityscapes of doubt, despair, distorted guitars and diabolical desires. But it felt fraudulent. I criticised U2's clumsy attempts to hijack the integrity of more sincere, innovative artists. In response, Bono sent an axe over to the NME office. As in hatchet job. Geddit?

 

But now: a shameful confession. With apologies to fellow U2-haters, I began to fall for their charms in the mid-1990s. With their 1995 side project, Passengers, and their 1997 album, Pop, they seemed willing to experiment - and, more importantly, to fail. Their music became more humorous, colourful, adventurous and self-mocking. U2 grasped the importance of not being earnest. Crucially, they also looked like they were having fun for the first time, rather than carrying the world's woes on their messianic shoulders.

 

Pop became U2's first major commercial stiff, alienating much of their traditional fanbase with its kaleidoscopic camp and disco kitsch. But the accompanying PopMart tour was fantastic, and remains the most dazzling stadium spectacular I've yet seen. Any superstar rockers prepared to emerge from a giant lemon-shaped glitterball every night to a thunderous wave of pumping techno are clearly not taking themselves too seriously. I was convinced.

 

And then - they blew it again. After burning their fingers with Pop, U2 greeted the new millennium by retreating to old monochrome certainties on their past two albums, All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Both were safe, plodding affairs calculated to win back the band's commercial heartland. Reverting to type, taking care of business.

 

U2's hard-nosed business methods are a red rag to my fellow haters. In 2006 the band were criticised for moving a chunk of their huge Irish operation to a more “tax efficient” regime in the Netherlands. Bono the charity cheerleader was singled out as a hypocrite, which arguably he is. But attacking U2 for being profit-driven is like criticising sharks for being predators. They have always been disarmingly frank about their ambition to be the biggest band in the world, and the Faustian deals they will strike to get there. The history of rock is a parade of millionaire tax exiles, not left-wing revolutionaries. Pop stars are capitalists. Get over it.

 

The chink in U2's armour is said to be Bono's outspoken charity work on African poverty and Aids: and, yes, there are many arguments against celebrities dabbling in global politics. But if the U2 singer has saved just one life in his decades of activism, all such criticism looks pretty flimsy.

 

U2 are bound to stir debate. After all, the Times critic David Sinclair branded them “rock's last superpower”. Bono has been criticised from both right and left; for doing too much or too little. But at least he is prepared get his hands dirty on complex, prickly problems instead of retreating into perpetual pampered adolescence like most millionaire rockers.

 

Who else in pop has the clout and arrogance to badger world leaders, hoping to shape global poverty policy? Even as a sometime U2 hater, this seems to me a valid use of celebrity power. Ethical contradictions do not make U2 a lesser band; they are precisely what makes them interesting.

 

But let's not forget the foundation of it all: the music. After two drab albums, No Line On The Horizon marks a step change for U2. Although not quite the Achtung Baby-style leap promised by early reports, it is their most sexy and experimental work for more than a decade. A mix of lustrous electronica, Arabic instrumentation and revved-up guitar riffs, it sounds like a band having fun again.

 

A bizarre historical pendulum appears to be at work here. When the Republican Ronald Reagan was in the White House, U2 made thumpingly earnest and conservative records. Under the Democrat Bill Clinton, they loosened up and embraced sleazy hedonism. With George W. Bush, back to one-dimensional pomposity again. This bodes well for their albums in the Obama era.

 

About now, my fellow U2 haters, those familiar symptoms should be kicking in. The urge to smash the TV whenever Bono appears. The wave of bile as Get On Your Boots blasts from every radio. But try to fight it. Deep breath. The sickness will pass.

 

 

 

:blink:

http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/music/e...u2-1638876.html

 

 

Eamon Carr's Verdict: U2

 

Friday February 13 2009

 

Bono will be 49 soon. For the last 33 years he's been punching the air and casting out demons as frontman with U2. Thirty-three years! As glam rockers Mott the Hoople would have it, that's "a mighty long way down rock'n'roll".

 

Many of U2's musical contemporaries have either retired or disintegrated. Some have reformed and returned to play the seniors' nostalgia circuit.

 

But the Dublin quartet are still kicking against the pricks. Still putting themselves through collaborative purgatory to reach a creative heaven. This is to their credit.

 

Work is what defines an artist. U2 take their gig seriously. Theirs is a vocation. But that's no guarantee of excellence.

 

Rock stars tend to get flabby. They can afford the many attractive distractions that come their way. As a result, the music suffers. This has been the pattern since before Gladys Presley discovered she was pregnant.

 

That U2 have delivered a 12th studio album of such elegance and abandon at this stage in their career is quite remarkable.

 

I'm not bigging up my buddies here. Nodding terms suits both parties. But I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight what I consider to be an artistic heart at the core of this new work that's unerring, fragile and true.

 

Taken collectively, these songs are a serious piece of work.

 

There's a line tucked away in the sleeve notes that thanks record company executive Jimmy Iovine "for believing that U2 are a brand new band". Huh! We've heard this before. Yet, once again, the band have managed a unique reinvention.

 

Not that they're going to emerge as crossdressers or Moonies. But, over the past decade the band appear to have undergone a profound metamorphosis. There's a depth to this album that is subtle, not strident. We've been catching glimpses of it over the years.

 

Today, there's a scuffed maturity in evidence here that can only come from life experience. It serves U2 well.

 

In the natural order of things, the ageing U2 should by now be trailing in the wake of younger, more dynamic bands. This is not the case. No Line On The Horizon raises the bar for Coldplay, The Killers and Kings of Leon.

 

It's an expansive record. Ranging from the seductive ambience of Moment of Surrender, through the sonic maelstrom of Stand Up Comedy to the rural hymnal purity of White As Snow, this is an 11-track collection that reveals itself gradually. While labyrinthine, the songs are sniper-sharp.

 

Steve Lilywhite, who was first to capture the band's anthemic thrill-power, is at the helm for about half of the new songs. Like the planned next single I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, these tend to be the tracks that reprise U2's high-octane garage band origins.

 

Having abandoned earlier sessions with producer Rick Rubin (who recaptured the greatness of Johnny Cash in his later years), U2 co-opted their previous collaborators Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois as writers and producers. It was an inspired move that has resulted in a series of songs that give the album its supple spine.

 

Some years ago Bob Geldof told me that Prince was the only artist whose work left him puzzled as to how he arrived at an unconventional song shape and an equally inventive production soundscape.

 

Many of the songs on No Line On The Horizon display similar attributes. Regular compositional structures are overturned, yet songs build from one memorable hook to another as U2 push a few boundaries.

 

The effect is to create layers of mystery which gradually unfold to reveal some brushstrokes of great beauty. Essentially, U2 are a guitar, bass and drums band. They retain the spark that's ignited the rock'n'roll fire from The Yardbirds to Television. But they've developed a communal imagination and group mindset that enables them to curate a song as a piece of contemporary art as much as to blast it out like primitive rockers.

 

They retain the arty curiosity that gave an added dimension to their earlier work. But they have become more surefooted, more confident in their risk-taking.

 

The writing in these new songs confirms the band's place as important voices. Like a new car design or a new piece of software, this album is a richly-textured and sleek machine that marries smart technology and human emotion.

 

From the cover photo by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto to the album's abrupt ending, there's a studied artistic awareness at work throughout No Line On The Horizon that few popular music artists can approximate.

 

But ultimately, as the saying goes, it's only rock'n'roll. However, in this case it's rock'n'roll that alludes to something greater.

 

If No Line On The Horizon isn't ultimately rated alongside The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby as one of a triumvirate of superlative U2 albums, then I'll be eating my pork-pie hat.

 

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Ireland’s leading music critic reviews the band’s latest album

1: No Line On The Horizon

 

It's the tremendous sonic dynamics that grab you as the bass and drums lock into an irresistible Madchester beat and carries on with a rising lift that oozes optimism as Bono sings, 'She said, "Infinity is a great place to start"'.

 

2: Magnificent

 

Larry's snare drum builds in dramatically before a familiar chiming guitar sound stamps U2 on the the song.

 

3: Moment of Surrender

 

A gorgeous soulful mid-tempo song that seems destined to be covered by hundreds of other artists. Huge synthesized bass sound and heartfelt vocal as Bono sings about 'playing with fire till the fire played with me'.

 

4: Unknown Caller

 

A warm New Orleans-style undertow to a song that doesn't reveal itself too soon.

 

5: I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

 

Will work brilliantly on a stadium stage. A further example of the band's unformulaic approach to writing.

 

6: Get On Your Boots

 

A powerhouse track that shakes up the album when it rattles in.

 

7: Stand Up Comedy

 

A monster riff from The Edge on a song that kicks the album to a different level of fun and excitement. More thought-provoking lines. 'Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady. . ."

 

8: Fez - Being Born

 

Atmospheric soundscape intro leads to an example of how well U2 have refined their trademark stylistic musical motifs.

 

9: White As Snow

 

Due on the soundtrack of Jim Sheridan's Iraq war film, Brothers, this sparse and haunting hymn is where performance artist Laurie Anderson meets alt-country and even at 4.39 seems short.

 

10: Breathe

 

Ushered in by a guitar buzzing like a swarm of angry bees, this is demented rock'n'roll with Bono in holy-roller mode invoking bizarre images including, 'I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease'.

 

11: Cedars Of Lebanon

 

Like a prize-winning short story, this has an insightful documentary feel that makes it the perfect coda to the album.

 

The writing here is brilliant and, as throughout, the playing shows a band at the height of its powers.

 

It's the tremendous sonic dynamics that grab you as the bass and drums lock into an irresistible Madchester beat and carries on with a rising lift that oozes optimism as Bono sings, 'She said, "Infinity is a great place to start"'.

 

:D

 

 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/neil_mccormic...o_really_thinks

 

U2: No Line On The Horizon - full review (plus what Bono really thinks)

Posted By: Neil McCormick at Feb 16, 2009 at 13:34:06 [General]

 

The new U2 album, 'No Line On The Horizon' will be released on March 2nd. It is a great record, and greatness is what rock and roll and the world needs right now. From the grittily urgent yet ethereal title track all the way to the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda of 'Cedars Of Lebanon' it conjures an extraordinary journey through sound and ideas, a search for soul in a brutal, confusing world, all bound together in narcotic melody and space age pop songs.

 

"Let me in the sound" is a repeated lyrical motif (showing up in three songs, including current single 'Get On Your Boots'). The theme of the album is surrender, escaping everyday problems to lose (or perhaps find) yourself in the joy of the moment. For Bono, it clearly represents an escape from the politics of his role as a lobbyist and campaigner into the musical exultation of rock and roll, yet the very notion of escape remains political, if only with a small p. "Every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street / With arms out, got a love you can't defeat" is the inspirational bridge in an epic, explosive rock anthem 'Breathe', that could be set in Gaza or at your own front door. Scattershot half-spoken verses fire images like news reports from the battleground of life ("16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up / And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus ... Doc says you're fine, or dying") til he is "running down the road like loose electricity", tension building in thundering drums and grungey two note guitar riff until it all lets loose in a soaring, anthemic chorus, as Bono tells us "I found grace inside a sound / I found grace, it's all that I found / And I can breathe".

 

The theme is even more explicit on 'Moment Of Surrender', a pulsing, dreamily gorgeous 7 minute weave of synths, silvery guitars, sub-bass, handclaps, Arabic strings and soulful ululating vocals, in which the narrator experiences a spiritual epiphany at the very prosaic setting of an ATM machine. It is a beautiful piece that provides the album's beating heart and shows how far U2 can drift from their stereotype as a stadium rock band into unknown territory while still making something that touches the universal.

 

Musically, these songs might be the two poles of an album that switches between overloaded rockers and hypnotic electro grooves: the U2 / Eno divide. 'No Line On The Horizon' was produced by the professorially brilliant Roxy Music synth magus Brian Eno with his rootsy, muso collaborator Daniel Lanois, the same team that has presided over U2's finest albums, Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991) and their latterday reclaiming of pop's high ground 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' (2000). The chief difference is that here they have been explicitly invited into the songwriting process, with 7 of the 12 tracks credited to both band and producers, and recorded with a six-piece line up featuring Eno on electronics and Lanois on acoustic and pedal steel guitar. It is these songs, in particular, which push U2 towards the invisible horizon of the title, at once more linear (they tend to be driven, with singular grooves, often pulsing along on particular sound effect or rhythmic repetitions) and lateral (they defy obvious song-structure, choruses drop rather than soar, Bono's rich, high voice subsumed into stacked harmonic chants). These tracks draw out of Bono a contemplative depth, so even the fantastically odd 'Unknown Caller' hits a vein of emotional truth, when the spaced out singer is cast adrift on the soundbites of computer and communications networks ('Password, you enter here, right now / You know your name so punch it in') yet seems to find himself talking to the inner voice of God ("Escape yourself, and gravity / Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak"). Words and music dovetail in surprising ways that send the senses spinning.

 

Left to their own compositional devices, U2 produce rock songs of high-wire adrenalin and in-your-face immediacy. It is almost a relief when they arrive like a troop surge in the middle of the album, reclaiming familiar territory with a burst of shock and awe. This is U2 on safe ground, ramming home the kind of smack bang crunch pop rock that they know radio programmers will fall at their feet for, yet there is almost too much melody and a surfeit of lyrical ideas. Current single 'Get On Your Boots' is the prime example, walloping along with two note punk rock energy, a low-slung heavy metal guitar riff, an expansively melodic psychedelic chorus and playful sloganeering lyrics in which Bono gets off the soap box to pay homage to the more prosaic pleasures of a beautiful woman in comically "sexy boots". Along with the Oasis on steroids singalong pop of 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight' and pop Zepplin-esque grooviness and shuffling beats of 'Stand Up Comedy', these songs are the albums most immediate and yet least resonant tracks. They are light relief from the more demanding adventures into new sonic terrain.

 

Bono's worst reflex as a lyric writer is sloganeering, partly because he is so good at it. On the three songs just mentioned, he piles catch-phrase upon soundbite to build up a thematic idea, often one that plays with his image. So in 'Stand Up Comedy' the diminutive rock star in stacked boots warns us to "stand up to rock stars / Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas" and in 'I'll Go Crazy' he confesses (or complains) "there's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet / And there's a part of you that wants me to riot." It is all good fun but too often sounds like a series of t-shirt slogans rather than a song with a heart of its own. His phrasemaking is put to much better effect when it pared back so that the emotion of the song takes precedence, as on the strange, addictive title track, where he loses himself in the blur of a mysterious love, a person whose unknowability represents a kind of Godliness and who tells him "infinity is a great place to start."

 

On 'Breathe', U2 locate the emotional and philosophical heart in an out and out ball busting U2 anthem (which Eno, apparently, asserts to be "the most U2 song" they have ever recorded). It is matched, in this respect, by the quite wonderful 'Magnificent', in which the U2/Eno/Lanois combo conjure up an instantly recognisable U2 classic in a love song with the flag waving pop drive of 'New Year's Day'. These are songs that will fill their fans with joy, but it is in the album's more intimate, off beat adventures that U2 lock into something that forces listeners to sit up and take note of them anew. There is a busy-ness in terms of sonic tapestry, the meshing together of Edge's sci-fi guitars and Eno's synths providing an intricate, detailed soundscape that constantly tugs at the ears and mind, but the U2/Eno/Lanois songs hold the centre, slowly revealing themselves, demanding repeat listens. It certainly sounds like U2 (as do a lot of groups these days) but in its boldest moments is as fresh and ambitious as the work of first timers, not veterans 33 years on the road.

 

If it has a flaw, it may be in U2's inherent tendency to want to be all things to all people, so that in album of surrender, they can't quite let themselves go all the way. They still want to bat the ball out of the stadium everytime, and so instinctively counterbalance their desire to reach something otherwordly with the safe bets of crunchy rock hits. In that respect, it doesn't have the innocence or singularity of 'Unforgettable Fire' or 'Joshua Tree', nor does it quite affect the bold re-wiring of their sound that was 'Achtung Baby'. To me, it is probably the album 'Zooropa' was supposed to be, building on the sonic architecture of classic U2 and taking it into the pop stratosphere. But what a place for a band to be, in orbit around their own myth, making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that?

 

Anyway that's my opinion. I can tell you what Bono thinks, because he has been texting me. He comes (as he explicitly says on 'Breathe') "from a long line of travelling salesmen" and he would probably sell his album door to door if he could. "Lifeforce, joy, innovation, emotional honesty, analogue not digital, home-made not pro-tooled, unique sonic landscape," are his buzzwords (although punctuation and spelling are mine). "I pinch myself every morning, evenings no longer a trial. Soul music for the frenzied, rock music for the still. The album we always wanted to make. Now we f*** off ..."

 

Not for a while yet, I suspect.

 

http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/music/n...es-1641321.html

 

 

No Line on the Horizon delivers some real surprises

 

By Danielle Cahill

 

Monday February 16 2009

 

The wait is finally over and with the Friday's official release of the new single Get on Your Boots, fans of home-grown superstars U2 are finally able to get their teeth into the new album. But does this much-anticipated effort from the lads deliver? Danielle Cahill finds out.

 

Between listening to Bono speak about poverty on the global stage and hearing tales of whose house was given what kind of planning permission in south county Dublin you could almost be forgiven for forgetting what it is that U2 do best. But, with their 12th studio album, the boys from da north side get back to basics with their strongest offering in years.

 

No Line on the Horizon delivers a range of sounds you wouldn't normally associate with one of the biggest stadium rock groups in the world. Throw in a brief homage to 70s rock, a hint of folk music, a touch of otherworldly tones and add some of the longest tracks the band have ever released and what you end up with is an interesting mix of electic sounds that promises to dominate radio airplay in the coming months.

 

The album's title track is, according to Bono, one of the fastest songs they have recorded and it's a great mix of strong guitar sounds and electro pop and haunting lyrics. Magnificent is a lot rockier and sounds like what you would expect of a U2 song. Though few acts could get away with lines such as "I was born to sing for you".

 

Despite its length, one of the stand out tracks for me is easily Moment of Surrender. At more than seven minutes this song shows the band at their best with Bono delivering strong vocals backed up by great guitar work and a real earthy sound. The almost biblical lyrics though, could send many rock fans running in the other direction what with all the talk of stations of the cross and souls. The first time I heard this track I wasn't overly impressed, but of all the songs on the album, it is the one that my mind replays over and over again.

 

Oddly the two longest tracks are back-to-back on the album with Surrender being followed by the six-minute epic that is Unknown Caller. There are some decent guitar sounds on this one and the lyrics are an interesting play on the importance of technology in day-to-day living. "Force quit, move to trash" are the kind of words you don't really expect on a rock album.

 

I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight will be all over the radio and no doubt become a popular ring tone too as it sees the band return to the rock and roll sound we've all long associated with them. With will.i.am playing keyboards and lyrics such as "every generation gets a chance to change the world" blending smoothly with the kind of guitar sounds that will keep everyone happy.

 

Stand Up Comedy sounds like a throwback to 70s rock that come across as a mixture of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Music fans should get a kick out of the self-deprecating lyrics like "stand up to rock stars/ Napoleon in high heels", with Bono singing "be careful of small men with big ideas".

 

Mixed by producer Brian Eno, Fez-Being Born is a real departure for the band and it begins with a long musical intro that combines an electronic sound with an otherworldly quality which then blends into a more traditional rock track - all together it puts the listener in another place. The track was recorded in Morocco and the rich array of unusual sounds is daring for a band that is clearly hoping for world domination with this album.

 

White as Snow sounds folksy and with lyrics rich in themes such as sowing seeds and finding a land as white as snow, this is one song that you wouldn't expect from U2.

 

The last track, Cedars of Lebanon takes music fans on a brief tour of conflict in the Middle East as seen by a war correspondent. "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you," Bono sings in the most political track on the album. It's a haunting song with a rich narrative that is well worth a second and third listen.

 

Given the long gestation period of this album, its accidental though short-lived online bootleg release, the final product has a lot riding on it. No doubt fans will mull over its textured sounds and lyrics for months to come and the band have been kind enough to offer five separate formats for music lovers to appreciate. It's not just another album, it's a multi-faceted offering from a band who are smart enough to understand that every brand needs options. Whatever listening option you choose, this is one album you will playing over and over again.

 

- Danielle Cahill

 

:w00t:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle5740885.ece

 

U2: No Line on the Horizon

 

 

U2: sounding like their old selves, despite the occasional weak point

Pete Paphides

 

Talk about raising the stakes. “If this isn't our best album, we're irrelevant,” Bono declared when asked about U2's new album, No Line on the Horizon, released on March 2. Anyone who has heard the current single, Get on Your Boots, surely won't need reminding how quickly such statements can repeat on you. Quite how such a dog's dinner of Dylan-esque free association and Bolan-esque electric boogie made it beyond the rehearsal room is anyone's guess.

 

But even before that point the drip-feed of information around No Line on the Horizon had been worrying. Sessions with Rick Rubin were abandoned early. The group made better progress with Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, the producers of U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree, which prompted Universal to set a deadline for release for autumn 2008. And yet no amount of frantic finessing could ensure the album's arrival in shops by Christmas.

 

It's a relief, then, to report that on their 12th album U2 come out of the traps sounding like, well, their old selves. The title track captures a band powering along with the majestic velocity of a Sherman tank. You want it to last, and it does for a time. “I was born to sing for you,” intones Bono on the stunning Magnificent, a lyric that brings religious intensity to what, by anyone else, would be a mere love song.

 

What follows is less a disaster and more a loss of focus, brought about, you suspect, because this is really a compilation of highlights from several disparately spread sessions. That they spent 16 months retooling Stand up Comedy should have told them that this lolloping mid-paced rocker simply wasn't good enough – and certainly not with lines such as “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady”. Trailed as the centrepiece of the album, Moment of Surrender is regarded by the band as the equal of One (1991). But Bono's impassioned testifying is left exposed by a meagre tune.

 

About three quarters in, however, it's a relief to report that you have heard all of the new album's low points. Adapted from a folk song, White as Snow is Bono's best vocal, depicting a war-torn landscape through eyes exiled by it.

 

No less potently, Cedars of Lebanon takes shape amid a sonic fug that mirrors the exhaustion of its war reporter narrator: “Child drinking dirty water from the riverbank/ Soldier brings oranges he got out from a tank.”

 

No Line on the Horizon isn't U2's best album. But irrelevant? When four members of a group click and the tape is running, irrelevant doesn't really come into it. And, over 54 minutes, there are enough of those moments to remind you that you write off U2 at your peril. Next time, though, Bono might want to use his powers of diplomacy to the benefit of his band. If you can get George Bush to sanction the largest response by a Western government to the Aids crisis then can't you convince your label to wait until you have really delivered your best album?

 

:unsure:

The album has leaked, and let me tell you - it is f***ing amazing :wub:

 

For those who don't like 'Boots' , don't worry because I think (and I am a fan of Boots) it is by far the weakest song on the album. This is quite possible my fave U2 album since AB, yes even better than my beloved ATYCLB and I'll tell you why. Because it is very different, and is far more complete. Everything about it is pure perfection. The production is just excellent, Bono's voice is the best it has been in a LONG time. It seems its improving with age. The Edge's guitar riffs on so many of the tracks are just amazing to say the least. Unlike the last two great albums, there is more than just a few truly amazing songs. Taking 'Boots' out of the picture (although I really like the riff and verses), there are no ok songs here - There is either brilliant songs, or really good ones imo. And that is coming from me who has only heard the album once properly, and It usually takes endless listens for me to get into songs. :lol:

 

I will do a proper review later, but the title track is amazing (very different from the alternative version that was the B-side for Boots), Magnificent is exaclly that and more, and I think Moments Of Surrender will soon be considered one of their best songs ever. It is bloody amazing. Unknown Caller is strange but really good on first listen, I'll Go Crazy is going to make a great second single, but Stand Up Comedy should've been the lead single, as it is just brilliant with Led Zepplin like riffs.

 

The reaction on U2 forums is that of absolute shock of how brilliant this album was. People were expecting it to be up there with the last two, but overall people are constantly saying it is their best since AB and I think I agree after just one listen, imagine what I will think after half a dozen listens :o

Btw, it has got 5 star review in Rolling Stone mag, so this is their 4th masterpiece according to them after Joshua Tree, AB, ATYCLB :D Q Mag have also given it 5 stars for their next issue apperently :D

Leaked? :o :o :o

 

 

Somebody told me the best tracks are Magnificent and I'll Go Crazy :P

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Entertainment/M...442526-sun.html

 

 

U2's Line in the sand

Irish rockers latest disc wasn't supposed to be released for two more weeks but No Line on the Horizon has hit the Internet. Here's what Sterdan thinks

By DARRYL STERDAN

 

The line for the new U2 album starts here.

 

Well, actually, it already started on your favourite online music-sharing site. Early yesterday, a little less than two weeks before its scheduled March 3 release date, No Line on the Horizon spread all over the Internet.

 

Supposedly, this third and presumably final leak -- after Bono's infamous Beach House Broadcast and last week's Wal-Mart Clipgate -- occurred when an Australian website owned by the band's label put the songs on sale too early. (Rumour is that they were also available for several days on Napster, but nobody noticed. Not sure if that says more about Napster or U2. Anyway ...)

 

Frankly, we're not sure if we believe that latest line. But you can believe this: In keeping with its title, Bono and co.'s dozenth studio album isn't nearly as straightforward and direct as its last couple of predecessors.

 

Recorded and co-produced with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois in Morocco, New York, London and Dublin, it's a murkier, moodier and more meditative work that tempers the band's anthemic tendencies with plenty of electronics, strings and spacious sonics. It's not quite as wussy as last week's leaked clips suggested. But it's not quite the reinvention that Lanois claimed either.

 

Either way, we get the feeling the band might be drawing a line in the sand with this one -- now they have to wait and see where the fans land.

 

Here's where we come down on the new cuts:

 

No Line on the Horizon 4:12

 

After a few seconds of feedback, the songs bursts open with a noisy cloud of mosquito-buzz guitars

 

and a thudding, bottom-heavy groove. The verses are all tension; the chiming, pretty chorus

 

provides the relief. A decent headnodder.

 

Magnificent 5:24

 

An ominous, Sabbathy lick does a weird dance with some bleepy electro sonics. Then the whole thing subtly shifts into more typical U2 terrain, complete with Edge's skritchy jangle, some string accents and Bono crooning that he "was born to sing for you." Seriously, dude?

 

Moment of Surrender 7:24

 

Between the title and lyrics about Bono tying himself with wire and riding the subway "through the stations of the cross," this one is pretty heavy on the religious metaphors -- though it's clearly about love. The languid pace, lush keys and skittery electronic glitches don't really lighten the mood. At seven minutes-plus, it's one of the band's longest songs -- and feels like it.

 

Unknown Caller 6:03

 

Another long one, Caller gradually builds from glistening guitar arpeggios into a dark, lushly restrained rocker laced with churchy organ and French horn -- and a nice solo from Edge. Too bad the barked backup vocals are straight out of Devo.

 

I'll Go Crazy if I Don't

 

Go Crazy Tonight 4:14

 

Edge backs off slightly to let Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton lay down one of their slow-rolling beats. Pity Bono spoils the mood right off the bat by wailing the title in an unhinged falsetto. The actual chorus is pretty strong, though. Perhaps the hookiest one on the disc so far.

 

Get on Your Boots 3:25

 

There are officially two kinds of people in this world: Those who completely loathe this fuzz-busting dance-rock single, and those who agree with Bono: "You don't get it, do you?" Either way, this ode to women ruling the world is easily the brashest track on the album.

 

Stand Up Comedy 3:50

 

This funky workout is somewhere between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction's Entourage theme Superhero -- but with a typical U2 chorus. "My ego's not the enemy," Bono claims. If he says so.

 

Fez -- Being Born 5:17

 

Sadly, the first part is not an ode to Wilmer Valderrama. But it is a warm, womblike Middle Eastern moodscape that leads into the percussive, hypnotically dreamy groove of Being Born. Clearly one of those mellow, candlelit home births.

 

White as Snow 4:41

 

Suitably atmospheric and chilly, with plucked acoustic guitars and tinkling keyboards, this wintry ballad about lost innocence sounds like Radiohead attempting folk music -- until it swells in the middle with orchestral strings and horns.

 

Breathe 5:00

 

It's a big rock waltz in 6/8 time, introduced by Mullen's tom-tom triplets and equipped with a dash of Zep's sweeping '70s rock swagger. Bono sings in a nasally high register, jabbering about Juju and travelling salesmen and cockatoos. It kind of makes sense given the title. But it still sounds bizarre.

 

Cedars of Lebanon 4:13

 

The mandatory closing ballad. Over a lazy, gauzy backdrop, a dusty-voiced Bono -- apparently singing from the viewpoint of a Middle Eastern war correspondent -- rasps about sleeping in his clothes and trying to beat deadlines while gazing at a picture of a lost love. Some glitchy textures add fever-dream overtones.