U2 No Line on the Horizon Album Review
Bono and the Band Release Hottly Anticipated 12th CD
Mar 4, 2009
U2’s new record, No Line on the Horizon has been called everything from their best work since Achtung Baby to complete rubbish. And while they have changed courses over the years, the band has made consistently well-crafted music, equally as powerful in concert as on record, altering the musical landscape with each subsequent release.
Though comparisons are understandable, No Line on the Horizon, U2’s 12 studio album since their debut back in the early 80’s, deserves to be judged on its musical merit alone and not how it measures up to The Joshua Tree or Zooropa. Fans and critics must remember that change is good. If every album sounded like Achtung Baby, U2 would get just as much flack for sounding too formulaic.
Get On Your Boots
That said, things looked grim after the first single “Get On Your Boots” failed to make a dent at radio or in the shops. Its schizophrenic melody and incoherent lyrics unfulfilled promises, coming from a band with a pedigree such as U2. The good news is that the rest of the album more than makes up for the first single’s losses.
Bono maybe pushing 50 but his vocals are as ripe and pliable on this record as they were back in the early nineties when the band began experimenting with new sounds and vocal styles. After nearly thirty years in the music business, that the band still sounds this good deserves a nod.
No Line on the Horizon continues experimenting with new sounds, after going for straight forward rockers on their last two studio albums. But sometimes too much experimenting is just as bad as not enough. Song styles vary frequently on this album, ranging from concert rockers such as “No Line on the Horizon” and “Magnificent” to big progressive ballads such as “Moment of Surrender”, “White as Snow” and “Unknown Caller”. At times they even brush with electronica such as on the strange “Fez – Being Born”.
Because of the frequent changes in style, the album feels less like a complete package and more like a sampler, perfect for the iTunes generation to pick and pluck from the store one song at a time.
The album contains great pieces of music, such as the bluesy ballad “Cedars of Lebanon” and the haunting “Unknown Caller” but at times the music frustrates, such as the intos on several of the tracks, such as “Fez – Being Born”, which lead nowhere.
Cedars of Lebanon
Perhaps the band intended the album to sound like a collection of tunes rather than a continuous thread - it’s hard to knock a U2 album, but No Line on the Horizon has been surrounded in inconsistency since news of the album first surfaced.
Bono stated in the press that he didn’t want the album to be released until he was completely satisfied and that it would sound unlike anything they had ever done before. In reality it sounds a lot like music they’ve made before. This familiarity comes courtesy of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, the same producers U2 have used numerous times before.
A creative effort that deserves attention, U2 has added another great album to their catalogue. It may not be the mind melting experimental masterpiece that hype would have lead one to believe, but No Line on the Horizon holds some stellar U2 moments.
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