U2 - No Line On The Horizon (Universal)
3/5
By: Tom Hocknell
Contrary to how they may feel, the days of a new U2 album being 'an event' have long passed. That decline coincided with the release of 1997's (actually) underrated Pop, not that you'd know it, with Bono gurning his way through 'I wear stacked boots' or whatever it was called at the Brits. Of course, bigger targets are easier to hit, but sometimes they do make it easy. If 'Get On Your Boots' is not the worst single of the year, then we are in for a sorry haul. However, 'Boots' is the nadir of a surprisingly rewarding album, a record that captures their admirable (and probably Brian Eno-inspired) intentions to experiment. Not that recent albums have set the bar high, other than in trying to out compete themselves with clumsy album titles; 'How to Dismantle a Nuclear Bomb' will forever take some beating - and still provokes the listener to fantasise they hadn't succeeded.
On the surface, this album is difficult, with a drawn out gestation, not helped by bootleggers' recording Bono playing tracks from a balcony in France, to the crap first single, and sprawling title track that grabs the baton from the previous two, poor albums, which appeared to have buried the muse informing the twin peaks of Achtung Baby and Zooropa.
However, things improve. 'Magnificent' is a 'New Year's Day' rewrite, with a stabbing Delays-like synth-line, soon drum-rolled aside by Larry and a swaggering bass-line. This epic, swelling beginning, leads to a touching Knopfler-esque guitar solo, and ultimately lives up to its title. In fact, its weakest point is Bono's vocal, which isn't aging well. The undeniably beautiful, 'Moment of Surrender' follows it, as this album's 'One', of which there hasn't been since, well, 'One'. In fact (bear with us here), this has two 'One's', with the gentle closer 'Cedars of Lebanon' matching its atmosphere, and in which Bono replaces his yodel with a half-spoken, intimate lyric.
Suggestions of a return to The Joshua Tree are borne out on 'Unknown Caller, with added French Horn, which along with the spacious 'Breathe', reintroduces that haunting touch so missing recently. 'Stand Up Comedy' is a lesser 'The Fly', with its 'small man/with big ideas' possibly demonstrating Bono has some humility.
In hindsight perhaps these days U2 are more than the four of them, reflected by the explicit writing credits for Eno and Lanois, and the second album promised later this year bodes well, as it appears when the pressure is off, U2 excel. That also gives them 6 months to come up with another album title that sounds like it was chosen from seventeen dictionaries, in a panic.
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