I've come to the conclusion that I don't think that SoI is a particularly good album among U2 albums. It's fine, it doesn't hurt U2's legacy, and it doesn't have any terrible songs, but I don't find it nearly as interesting, inspired, inspiring, or just generally good as No Line. In fact, I'd say that it's U2's second-worst album since Rattle and Hum.
However, I am thankful that a halfway-decent U2 album came out at all this year. And I'm also thankful that Songs of Innocence has caused me to revisit No Line a lot, and remember why I really love that album. Perhaps, however, the fact that I connected with the No Line songs when I was a teenager, and that they were so important to me at that age, will always bias be in favor of that album, and I am just judging SoI because it's a lot harder for me to have the sort of relationship with an album nowadays that I had with No Line when I was sixteen.