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The wait has been a long one, but the 33-year old juggernaut that is U2 is finally rolling once more with this, their 12th studio album. Both the band and their collaborators have been hyping No Line On The Horizon as a sonic evolution, so does it deliver this?
In short, yes and no. This album could never be mistaken for anything but U2; it’s shot through with a sound that is instantly recognisable as belonging to the Irish four-piece. But there is something indefinably different here too. At risk of sounding like a shampoo commercial, there’s a freshness and a vitality that Bono & Co. have not demonstrated since their early-nineties material.
Indeed, it’s hard not to recall the experimental psychedelia of 1993’s Zooropa when faced with the wall-of-sound of the opening title track and the foot-stomping ‘Magnificent’, Bono’s yelled vocal line floating above a sonic ocean of plunging chord changes. The two soul-searching soliloquies that follow, ‘Moment Of Surrender’ and ‘Unknown Caller’, comprise wonderfully layered textures of guitars, organs and horns that sleep-walk through hypnotic modulations, though at a combined running time of over 13 minutes, this is hardly radio-friendly stuff. These definitely aren’t songs to get the stadiums singing along, but they’re so brilliant that they probably will anyway…
Even ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight’, by far the most accessible track, achieves a certain level of sophistication. But the pop spell is short-lived; a barrage of drums launches the gritty lead-single, ‘Get On Your Boots’, before an apparent desperation for revolution incites ‘Stand-Up Comedy’, a song so funk-laden that it draws comparison with Achtung Baby’s ‘Mysterious Ways’.
One big surprise is the apparent post-rock influence; in particular the psychedelic ambience of ‘Fez’ and the relentlessly driving rhythm of ‘Being Born’ makes one wonder whether the band have had Sigur Rós on their playlist.
No Line finds Bono in versatile vocal form; just listen to his Dylan-esque delivery of ‘Breathe’, proof that U2 can still do rock ‘n’ roll. But it’s lyrically that he really hits the mark, striking a precise balance between the personal and the epic. For example, the album’s conclusion, ‘Cedars Of Lebanon’ (a haunting parting gesture reminiscent of Achtung Baby’s ‘Love is Blindness’) ends with the sobering remark "Choose your enemies carefully ‘cause they will define you".
It seems narrow-minded to keep on drawing comparisons with a band’s previous material, but it’s impossible not to when the band concerned has such an illustrious back-catalogue. In truth, this is a truly brilliant album in its own right. Unfathomable on first hearing, it manages to bottle what has made U2 great, but mixes this with an inventiveness and a creative desire that has been lacking in the group’s more recent outings. Their best work? Only time will tell...
No Line On The Horizon is out now.
I listened to it on Spotify the other day and really enjoyed it, definitely a much better effort than How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
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