It’s been a while since 2004′s How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, but U2′s latest offering, No Line on the Horizon, is well worth the wait. It is a wonderful album, but very different depending on how you listen to it: as an album, or as a collection of songs. As an album it is truly “Magnificent,” blending the sounds that we expect from U2 with the experimentalism added by producers Brian Eno and Danny Lanois to create a series of delicate, beautiful, and meditative soundscapes. As a collection of songs, it is weaker. Some are brilliant, but others miss the mark.

The first (also the title) song starts with a few notes from Edge’s guitar, and then builds up into the energetic, but still surprisingly melodic song that is “No Line on the Horizon.” The album follows much the same arc. The first half is, on the whole, meditative, and each song picks up and expands on the one before it. It culminates in the crazy and fast “Get On Your Boots” which, whatever its other shortcomings, definitely gets you dancing. Then it becomes pensive again with “FEZ – Being Born,” and concludes with a few decidedly slow and quiet songs. Most noticeably, the album is unusually melodic while thankfully not crossing over to the dark side, pop. The word that comes to mind is “soundscape,” and that is probably the best way of describing it.

Early buzz has also hailed No Line as being very experimental, and this is definitely true. What stands out most is “FEZ – Being Born” which is one of my favourite tracks. It starts with a few abortive sound bites from other songs on the album, as well as a some bars of strange, synthesized music, until it goes into the song itself – giving the impression that the song, and maybe the whole album, is what is being born. This sounds tacky on the page, but they manage to pull it off to a great effect.

The songs that work for the album as a whole don’t necessarily work on their own, and vice versa. For all of the acclaim it’s been getting lately, “Magnificent” is far too 80′s-synthesizer for my liking, and “Unknown Caller,” while musically interesting, is completely sabotaged by poor lyrics: “Restart and reboot yourself… password, you enter here, right now.” Lyrics are definitely a weak spot on this album: the best songs fall short of U2′s greatest, and the worst are… well… “get on your boots/sexy boots,” sings Bono on “Get On Your Boots.” Profound, no? The only song that can really stand up to U2′s own standard is “White as Snow,” which carries the band’s trademark blend good and evil, hope and dystopia, innocence and sin, and works perfectly with the music while retaining its poetry.

These few pitfalls aside, the album offers some really memorable songs, which I’m sure we’ll be singing years down the road. I decided I would list my favourites here, but abandoned that attempt when I realized that they included well over half the album – which says something about how good the album really is. Even GOYB is starting to grow on me. If you’re one of those people who buy single songs rather than entire albums, I would recommend you go with “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” “Breathe,” “No Line on the Horizon,” “Standup Comedy,” or “White As Snow,” since they are some of the best on the album and also work really well on their own. If you buy the entire album, watch out for “FEZ” – it’s a fantastic song, but would lose a lot if taken out of context. Either way, No Line on the Horizon is a fine return for a great band.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Arts, Music, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.