Well, with No Line On The Horizon you can say that they occasionally lose the plot.
I was fantastically excited for this album to come out because for almost ten years before U2 had been batting 1000%. All That You Can't Leave Behind was every band's dream comeback album; loaded with perfect songs from start to finish. On a personal note I connected with this album because Bono finally seemed to make peace with singing about God and the album is full of great spiritual moments like the ending song "Grace". 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is likewise a classic album, with more worshipful songs like "Yaweah" and "All Because Of You." The rock and roll is back in force and "City Of Blinding Lights" is a swirling masterpiece of a four minute pop song.
Which leads us to No Lin On The Horizon.
It seems like the lads wanted to mix it up and be "experimental" but forgot that they are the soundtrack to so many lives. People rarely soundtrack their lives to ambiant, discordant noise, unless you are Paul Thomas Anderson (of the great There Will Be Blood and Magnolia). U2 spent two years making this when they should have spent two months. It seems overcooked and over thought. Sometimes it's hard to see something as it is when you have been living with it too long.
That's not to say there aren't great moments to be found. I love "Magnificent" (a straight ahead worship song that has confused secular critics; "who is Bono talking to?") and the fantastic "Moment Of Surrender", which is my favorite song on the album. Most of the rest of the songs are just okay, and a few are ambient crawlers that don't go anywhere. Hats off for doing something brave I suppose, but "Fez-Being Born" is hard to sit through.
It's ironic that the tour for this album is now the highest grossing of all time. It's telling that they only played two songs from this album regularly on the tour for said album.
I'm looking forward to what the fella's are going to do next.
3 stars
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