It's a good album. Some of it -- Troubles, EBW, the end of CR -- is great U2. It's always engaging and the storytelling is actually pretty good, and the album is about as good as we could hope for by a band with this much history. I, personally, would hope that they move in a more reflective, meditative direction as suits their age, I only find them embarrassing when they try to rawk (Volcano). But they wanted to sound alive and energetic (as suits "innocence"). And the album largely does that. California is also some kind of highlight.
All that said, the tour is astonishing. The Ireland section is as powerful and thought-through as anything they've done, and is so intellectually engaging that it lays the framework for the overwhelming emotional wallop of the "greatest hits" part of the show. There's something very interesting going on -- our new stuff is about who we were so that you can better understand who we became, and that's where they are now. It's almost like SOI (and I assume SOE) are like prequels. And that's why the show ends so euphorically -- the transcendence is earned.
