What we really do know about NLOTH ...

[mikal]

Recalling Gavin’s white board…

My theory:
At the moment Gavin’s recording white Board was done, neither Winter (or White As Snow) were in U2 plans.
If you recall well, Eno was “cursing” U2 for having discarded a ballad. At that time, we only knew it was called Winter.
Suddenly, when the tracklisting was revealed, we got aware of White As Snow.
All other articles mentioned Winter as the song for the Brothers soundtrack. So I suppose the song were only due to appear on the movie and not in the album.
On the last minute, everything changed again and the song was renamed to White As Snow and included on the album.
Claudio

probably not too far off there. i also wonder, since Winter is mentioned to be on Linear, if Winter morphed into an instrumental.

 

[cdirani]

probably not too far off there. i also wonder, since Winter is mentioned to be on Linear, if Winter morphed into an instrumental.

Maybe at the time the film was shot the song was still called Winter before being renamed. The thing is, if White As Snow isn't Winter, the first one turned up in the eleventh hour - and when Winter was no longer an album track.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

UPDATE (02/16/2009, with a new, interesting fan report by J2-D2)

An analytical summary of NLOTH from the journalist's view, with the tunes in a casual running-order:

1. First the Q-source from November visiting the Olympic Studios and a private session with Bono ...

2. The Q-magazine snippets, that might capture nearly the same period than the first source and might have the same roots as controbution for Q's special ...

3. The RS-review of the tracks from early December (with the wrong date, 22nd January, but claiming to be part of the 7th January issue!!!)

4. The current RS-article (01/07/2009), that was obviosuly written on the same occasion as the RS-review. This article confirms our impression here in the forum, that the time, Q and RS visited U2, the work was far from finished. One consequence: At least in parts the known album tracks are 'only' working titles; to create a tracklist for NLOTH out of this, is pure speculation. "We're at the point where half the album is done, and half the album is in a state where anything can happen — and probably will" – says the Edge and thus, this is all we know here on the board regarding the different tunes...

5. The detailed (and officially by the mangement allowed?) Alan Cross statements and impressions on the new single "Get On Your Boots", who's yet to be the first known to us journalist, who obviously has listened to the track (Twitter / alancross).

6. The 2nd detailed review of the single by skott100 (I got on "Boots" this morning! (Single review))

7. Including the official tracklist, confirmed by u2.com and new descriptions by billboard.com

8. Dave Fanning's reviews

9. Daniel Lanois in an interview with Alan Cross

10. "Independent article", that refers to the album's playback in Dublin on St. Stephen's Greeen (01/29/09)

11. The review on "www.u2tour.de" (in rough translation from German in English), that unfortunately doesn't tell us much more about the album's themes & lyrics, but at least about the sounds. The reviewer wants to confirm: "Fez" is NOT "Tripoli"! – which might be true or not. I don't believe the source on u2tour.de, instead I do think "Fez" is identical with "Tripoli" (the 'Cadiz', 'landscape', 'journey'-theme is so striking and it would be strange, if U2 had written two 'experimental' tunes with the same topic. So I left the descriptions for "Tripoli" in ...)

12. A reviewer's translation from Brunocam, that gives us more insight in the lyrics

13. Sunday Mail

14. The Sydney Morning Herald, with some more insight on sounds

15. Review by interferencer 'Walt Disney'

16. Review by 'Andrew P Street', who dislikes the album and, yes, bashes ...

17. The Australian

18. Melbourne Herald Sun

19. Hot Press

20. Irish Independent

21. Review by 'J2-2D'

22. Lyrics, we already (think to) know

... enjoy and thanx for keeping this 'analytical' thread alive!


NO LINE ON THE HORIZON: TRACK BY TRACK SUMMARY


1. "No Line On The Horizon"

• (- Q-source: "further unfinished"; "two versions were extant: the first is another TUF-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punky Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace", "Bono very excited about the second version"
• (- Q-magazine: "began life as a slow paced Eno-esque ambient treatment, before being dramatically reworked in the Olympic Sessions into an abrasive punk-rock tune akin to Vertigo, with its "No! Line!" chorus chant"
• - RS-source: "the title track's relentless groove began as a group improvisation. "It's very raw and very to the point," says the Edge. "It's like rock & roll 2009""
• -RS-article: "churning, tribal groove and a deadpan chorus"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - Independent: "the opening title track kicks off with a crunchy, distorted guitar riff from the Edge"
• - tour.de: "booming guitar riffs", "slamming bass", "Bono's voice cries, hurts, and only slowly gets more melodic"; "the catchy chorus is a surprise, carried vocally by The Edge"; "in the middle the song is slower", "classic U2 song structures, before it gains more speed again"; "at the end guitar parts that remind of Lady With The Spinning Head"; "a dense atmospheric song"; "U2's music in a changed world of sounds"
• - Brunocam: "Characteristic of the U2 song, the epic sense in growing, guitars sometimes quiet, sometimes strident, with Bono singing "i know a girl who's like the sea / I watch her everyday changing for me / Oh yeah." Originally had a very environmental treatment, through the production of Brian Eno, but in the end it became an abrasive rock song."
• - Sunday Mail: "This opens with a loud sonic drone before Bono sings: "I knew a girl who's like the sea/I watch her changing every day for me."
Then Larry's drums kick in and the song lifts off. It could be their best live stadium opener since Zoo Station."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Buzzy guitars and offkilter Enoesque noises vie for attention while Bono strains for effect as he reflects both the tension and the intensity of the song. The chorus (not a big one; more a devolving of the verse) retains the tension, but puts it in a gentler setting. Bono seems to be singing to, or about, a girl, not for the last time on the album, but it's not easy to decipher."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Best opener since "Zoo". The chorus is really a hushed version of the verse until the last 30 seconds when the song erupts into a punk rock death chant. Sonically brilliant, like an Eno junkyard full of space age trinkets. Fast, yet slow, yet fast. Ending sounds like of all bands, pixies, yes, pixies, madness."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "A Bo Diddley beat heralds the beginning of Brian Eno's new album, featuring U2. In fact, the cluttered production and layers of keys sound not dissimilar to what Eno did with James circa Whiplash. And then they staple some ethnic percussion to the thing for no good reason."
• - The Australian: "The bombast, the clever use of dynamics and the rhythm section's funk-fused rock groove are strikingly familiar". "Best example of these elements' collective power, with Bono milking a huge anthemic chorus. It has stadium written all over it."
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "The fantastic title track has a wall of distorted guitar that recalls a previous envelope-pushing moment, "The Fly"."
• - Hot Press: "The collection's only other ball-busting, out and out rocker is the title-track, which lives up to the 'Buzzcocks meets Bow Wow Wow' billing it's been given by its author, who mizes metaphysics with mischief-making as he recounts: 'She said, 'Time is irrelevant, it's not linear/Then she put her tongue in my ear'."
• - Irish Independent: "It starts off strongly with the title track, a barnstorming stadium rock tune that could have come from the songwriting stable of Kings of Leon."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a raucous, exciting start to the proceedings—much better than the alternate version—and the only disappointment is that it's wild enough that you think maybe you're getting another Zooropa. You're not. That's not a bad thing, but I would love another Zooropa."
• - "I know a girl who's like the sea, I watch her changing every day for me. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. One day she's still, the next she swells,
you can hear the universe in her sea shells. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line. I know a girl with a hole in her heart,
she said infinity is a great place to start. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, Oh no you know it’s gonna be, hold on. The lady said me that I could ???? lover, I wanna beat it (o be) and see ????. No, no line on the horizon, no line... The songs in my head is now on my mind. I put you on pause, I'm trying to rewind and replay. Every night I have the same dream, I'm hatching some plot, scheming some scheme. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. I'm traffic cop, rue de marais. The sirens are wailing but it's me that wants to get away, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line ...")


2. "Magnificent"

• (- Q-source: "classic U2-isms"; "echoes TUF's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep"
• - Q-magazine: "slow building anthem with the ambience of TUF and laced with the wide eyed wonder of U2's earlier albums. Edge here is at his most dynamic. Features the line:"Only love can reset your mind""
• - RS-source: ""Only love can leave such a mark," Bono roars on what sounds like an instant U2 anthem. Will.i.am has already done what Bono calls "the most extraordinary" remix of the tune"
• - RS-article: "familiarly chiming U2 anthem"
• - Independent: "dancey electro flourishes introduce an atmospheric track with moody leanings"
• - u2tour.de: "begins with loud drums, there are loops and riffs, chasing each other, before Edge's classical guitar sound sets in"; "Bono starts singing his part with the title of the song"; "a very melodical song, perhaps one of the best on the whole album"; "but also one that would have fit on previous U2 albums"; "also new layers of sound and would perhaps still feel fine on 'Achtung Baby'"; "a strong coda finishes the song, which we already know as Beachclip No. 4."
• - Brunocam: "One of the songs that promises immediate membership. "Only love can reset your mind" Bono sings, among the environments that lead to the U2 album "Unforgettable Fire", in combination with the most direct route rock of recent albums. There are electronic effects, orchestral arrangements that evoke the period "The Joshua Tree" and a balance of typical song of love - "I was born to sing for you / I did not have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you my voice back."
• - Sunday Mail: "A future single choice which more than lives up to its bold title. The Edge's driving guitar gives the song a New Year's Day-style mood.
Bono is in great form when he sings: "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up." He's dead right because, just two numbers in, the album already has a classic feel."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "More of those odd sounds behind treated guitars and synthesisers and the song opens in two or would now be called "classic U2", the familiar 80s quick marching rhythm and the Edge's exploratory guitar lines. The most traditional sounding song on the album has Bono declaring that "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice" before confessing that "only love can leave such a mark"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "More familiar territory here with some brilliant "oh oh" that sound like a choir of Bonos and Edges, very lemon in parts but easier to swallow. Huge lush ending that will bring stadiums of peole to tears. Will be big big single. Anthem etc."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Kind interpretation: this harkens back to Zooropa, especially in the electro introduction. Less-kind version: hey, it's REM's 'Orange Crush', as rewritten by short-lived 90s synth darlings Republica! It's here that Bono's lyrics come to the fore and you realise that he's followed Bruce Springsteen into the late-period creative cul-de-sac where he's incapable of speaking in anything other than clichés and meaningless waffle. "Only love can leave such a mark," he declares, leaving the listener to answer the question, "what the bloody hell is he on about?" for themselves."
• - The Australian: "vaguely "Where The Streets Have No Name"-sounding"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "sounds like a single (once it has had a radio edit) with that signature Where the Streets Have No Name chugging guitar and drum momentum."
• - Hot Press: "'From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ... only love, only love can leave such a mark', he proclaims on the aptly-titled 'Magnificent', an eclectic mix - inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's The Magnificat, no less - of mournful Roy Orbison guitar, Killers-style synth stabs (this musical magpie lark works both ways, Brandon!) and anthemic flourishes which recall the likes of 'New Year's Day' and 'Pride'."
• - Irish Independent: "one of the album's stand-outs, the aptly titled "Magnificent." This already sounds like a classic U2 song that combines disparate eras of their career in a hugely appealing way -- War-meets-Zooropa, if you will. Even the most avowed U2-hater is likely to struggle to come up with reasons to dislike the Edge's irresistible guitars and muscular rhythm section. It's one of two songs featuring the keyboards of will.i.am and while the Black Eyed Peas' main man is hardly a distinct enough keys player to make you sit up and take notice, Eno's typically smart production takes all the elements and concocts the sort of epic five-minuter that's become his stock-in-trade. Let's just say one of his more recent "clients," Coldplay's Chris Martin, is likely to weep with envy when he hears it."
• - 'J2-D2': "is like Joshua Tree 2.0: a big, beautiful, classic Edge riff that makes you think of horses racing across a western plain, but with a few dancey touches. If it's not the biggest single off the album, I'll be surprised."


• - "Magnificent (oh, oh), magnificent"; "I was born to sing for you, I didn't have a choice, but to lift you up. And sing whatever song you wanted me to, I give you my voice back." “Only love can leave such a scar”. “Only love can make such a mark”. “Only love can reset your mind”. “You and I will make a fire!”)

3. "Moment Of Surrender"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "a strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take"; "sounds like a great U2 moment in the spirit of "One""
• - Q-magazine: "georgiously melodic 7 minute song that already has the air of the U2 classic about it, with lyrics about dark stars and existential crises:"I did not notice the passers-by/And they did not notice me". Recorded in one take. This album's "One""
• - RS-source: "this seven-minute-long track is one of the album's most ambitious, merging a TJT-style gospel feel with a hypnotically loping bass line and a syncopated beat""
• -RS-article: "astonishing seven-minute"; "was played just one time — the band improvised the version on the album from thin air"
- Billboard: "more experimental fare"; "an electro-leaning track with an Eastern-inspired scale in the chorus, making it one of the weirder U2 tracks in decades."
• - Independent: "this particular moment of surrender sees a slowing down of the tempo and some delicate, bluesy guitar playing from the Edge"
• - u2tour.de: "among the slowest on the CD"; "dripping beats with an obvious influence from the Fez sessions open the track"; "strings and keyboards take over, before Bono's voice surprisingly shaky begins". "parts of the song almost remind of the Passengers' experiments"; "until Bono and Edge come to melodical chorus with Falsetto voice support"; "a gloomy mood"; "a much-layered sound carpet"; "Edge has a very expressive, but slow guitar solo in this song"
• - Brunocam: "Promises to be a classic in many concerts in the line of what happens with ballads like "One". Melodic song of seven minutes, starts slow, with lyrics about "dark stars" and with Bono's voice a little hoarse evoking existential crises - "I myself tied with wire / To let the horses free / Playing with the fire until the fire played with me. " The pace and syncope, the blues guitar of The Edge line of low and delicate environment, creating a hypnotic effect general."
• Sunday Mail: "Bono reckons this is one of the best songs U2 have written - and with their back catalogue, that's saying something. It opens with a guitar sound reminiscent of Where The Streets Have No Name and features a great Edge solo. In one of his most personal lyrics, Bono says: "I've been in every black hole/At the altar of the dark star/My body's now a begging bowl/That's begging to get back." A stunning song Springsteen or Dylan would be proud of."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A moodier track with irregular hand percussion (or a loop, or both) picking away at the edges of a bed of synthesisers and violin. The emotional tone is late '80s U2; the musical palette, with hints of electronica, is more early '90s. Before those richly layered Eno/Lanois-signature backing vocals arrived late in the piece Bono goes from enigmatic: "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free/playing with fire till the fire plays with me" (I think) to matters closer to the heart: "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Softer moment after the hugeness of the first two songs. Not as sonic but has a weird vibe. Will require further listening but sounds promising."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "After the Vangelis-via-Eno synth intro, Bono delivers a husky, passionate vocal for the album's first ballad, including what an early contender for Dumbest Line of 2009: "Playing with the fire, 'til the fire plays with you." The Edge pulls out a rudimentary slide guitar solo and then there's an oh-ah-oh wordless singalong that should be a hit at the half dozen shows where they try this one out before never playing it again."
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois leave their fingerprints all over the atmospheric Moment of Surrender - cathedral organs and a heavy bass groove spoiled only by Bono mentioning an ATM."
• - Hot Press: "a gospel-flavoured seven-minute epic that rides in on an orchestral wave, and includes such evocative cinematic couplets as: 'I was speeding on the subway/Through the stations of the cross/Every eye looking every other way/Counting down 'til the pain would stop'. If U2 were trying to conjure the same spiritual vibe as Marvin Gaye's 'Abraham, Martin, John' they've succeeded. 'Moment Of Surrender' is a big, sweeping track in the vein of 'With Or Without You' that's certain to become a U2 classic."
• - Irish Independent: "Songs like "Moment of Salvation" -- which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome -- is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul," "God" and "fire."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Miss Sarajevo", It doesn't ever feel like it's a seven-and-a-half-minute song. I'm not sure how, because it's not complicated at all, but it never gets boring."
• - “We’ll set ourselves on fire.” “I did not notice them, they did not notice me”. “ATM machine”. "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free, playing with fire till the fire plays with me". "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me". "I've been in every black hole, at the altar of the dark star, my body's now a begging bowl, that's begging to get back.")

4. "Unknown Caller"

• (- Q-source: "stately"; "was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn"
• (- Q-magazine: "opens with the sound of birdsong recorded live in Fez. A middle eastern flavoured percussion loop drives this tale about a man"at the end of his rope" whose phone bizarrely begins texting him random instructions: "Reboot yourself","Password, enter here","You're free to go".
Dallas Schoo describes the song as "one of Edge's major solos in his life - you wont hear better than that on any other song""
• - RS-source: "this midtempo track could have fit on ATYCLB. "The idea is that the narrator is in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him," says the Edge"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "more intricate guitar fretwork that builds into a mid-tempo rocker featuring an organ and one of the album's lushest productions"
• - u2tour.de: "Bird, electrical noise and keyboards guide "Unknown Caller" on." "The song has exciting breaks in the sound structure, somewhere it always comes back to the classic U2 sound, before it comes consistently interrupted"; "almost the entire track sung in two voices". "In the chorus sings Bono "Restart and reboot yourself" and brings one of the key points, the lyrics may be the concept of the album: "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning"" "Edge with another strong guitar solo and Bono singing "Escape yourself and gravity." "This song is known as Beachclip No. 1"
• - Brunocam: "It is one of the songs where Bono is in a fictional role, someone in an altered state that is faced with a phone that speech. On the sound could belong to "All That You Can not Leave Behind," the half-time pace, silky, with light body and The Edge to leave its mark in an intricate guitar break."
• Sunday Mail: "An epic with double-tracked vocals, wailing Edge guitar and pounding Adam bass. It's a musical feast with so much going on it's initially tough to take it all in. In the chant-style chorus Bono sings: "Hear me/Cease to speak/That I may speak/Shush now." If nothing else, that's got to be another first for U2 - a pop song with "Shush" in the lyric."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Some really interesting ambient sounds in a late, late night setting more concerned with atmosphere than asserting itself. It's 3.33am "in a place of no consequence or company" and he's "speed dialling with no signal at all". The lyrics seem more impressionistic, disconnected and with a touch of David Bowie in the chanting underneath. And is that French horns at the end? Not usually heard on a U2 album."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Bono at his existensial best. Best lyrics since the fly and a guitar break that had every hair on my body stand on edge. You can really hear Eno at work here, sounds like it was written in space. Glorious madness, and an ending that sounds like Bono as a wolf, yelping his way to the end of the world. Drool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Eno has a good old fiddle until The Edge remembers what he did for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" – which will make a sweet segue during the tour. There's some genuinely great tasteful fingerpicking here, but it's about this point you'll start thinking "Hold on, aren't U2 best known for their stick-in-your-head choruses? What happened? And how did the last song go?""
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach, although the ... song fails to deliver on its early promise."
• - Hot Press: "The first reminder that Fez, in Morocco, was the birthplace for much of the album - and that Brian Eno was among the midwives - is provided by the birdsong and looped Arab percussion at the beginning of 'Unknown Caller', which also finds Bono giving his falsetto another impressive work out."
• - 'J2-D2': "eminds me of "The Three Sunrises," for some reason—maybe because the first vocal is Edge doing a high-pitched "Sunshine, sunshine..." And then it goes into him and Larry and I think Bono (it's at least two of them, but I think all three) going "Ohohohohohahoh..." a couple of times, followed by some bright UF-style guitar and percussion. And then Bono's main vocal comes right in. It is the weirdest song on the album, and the lyrical offenses ("Force quit! Move to trash!") stand out so much that it's a little hard to like it at first. The music is too interesting to ignore, though—like a proggy take on a classic U2 sound—so you get over it. I'm reminded of that Bono quote about Michael Jackson from (I think) the Bill Flanagan book: how Jackson's voice is the most beautiful sound in the world if you just ignore the words he's singing. And other than those glaring bits, the rest of the lyrics are quiet poignant."
• - Sunshine, sunshine. Sunshine, sunshine"; "Restart and reboot yourself". “you know your password, key it in.”
“3:33 in the morning and the numbers dropped off the clockface”. "in a place of no consequence or company". “Escape yourself and gravity.” "speed dialling with no signal at all". "Hear me, cease to speak, that I may speak, shush now.". "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning")

5. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

• (- Q-source: "straight up pop"; "the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at"
• - Q-magazine: "upbeat pop track with distinct echoes of 60's era Phil Spector, particularly the moment when its chorus disappears into a wash of reverb. Centres around the line: "I'll go crazy If I dont go crazy tonight""
• - RS-source: "It's kind of like this album's 'Beautiful Day' — it has that kind of joy to it," Bono says. With the refrain "I know I'll go crazy/If I don't go crazy tonight," it's the band's most unabashed pop tune since "Sweetest Thing"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Billboard: "classic U2 rocker"
• - Independent: "chiming guitar intro, a rousing Bono falsetto and the lyric, "Every generation has a chance to change the world"
• - u2tour.de: "one of the shorter songs of the album. The sound is taken from Larry's Drums, Edge comes with catchy guitar parts"; "quiet song sections before Larry comes back powerfully forward". "In the central part of it sometimes reminds a little of the atmosphere in "Sometimes You Can t make it on your own, while the end of the song sounds a lot like "Ultra Violet"-sounds"; "The text of the song is political, Bono sings: "There`s a part of me that wants to riot" and later "Every generation get's a chance to change the world". "I'll go crazy would also be a possible second or third single"
• - Brunocam: "As the title suggests, is one of the most daytime, and markedly festival pop along the lines of classics like "Beautiful Day", with some echoes, reverberations, refrain effective (I'll go crazy if i do not go crazy tonight " ), guitars and falsetto loose from Bono to proclaim "every generation gets a chance to change the world."
• Sunday Mail: "Thumping drums, pulsing bass and piano get this potential single off the launch pad. Musically, it has all the trademarks of a U2 classic with another soaring Bono vocal and great "woo-oo" hook on the chorus.")
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Mixed marriages don't always work, but should, seems to be the theme. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life/I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight." This is a straight out pop song with reverb guitars and Bono in high croon. It's also a U2 track they could do in their sleep, but no less attractive for that. The question is will it last as long as some of the others?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Sounds a bit weak next to UC but a glorious I song. Reminds me of something from the brill building days in the golden age of pop. Great lyrics, will be a huge single. Happiest song since BD"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "There are two ways that a song with this title should go. The first and most obvious is a Bon Jovi/Poison good time blues-rock party anthem, with a kick-ass guitar solo (preferably heralded with Jon Bon Jovi/Sebastian Bach screeching "Guitar!") and maybe some sweet harmonica in the coda. The other, less obvious but equally suitable way would be as a Bryan Adams/Aerosmith power ballad, which would also have a kick-ass guitar solo but would be less about partying and more about how crazy the love of a woman can drive a man, which would be a thinly-veiled sex metaphor. "I'm not perfect baby, as anyone can see," Adams/Steven Tyler would sing just before the chorus, "And though you drive me crazy, I'm still as crazy as a man can be." See? The song writes itself. The third option, which is the one that U2 went for, is to do an unmemorable mid-paced song with lyrics like "She's a rainbow, she loves the peaceful life" and a guitar riff lifted from Altered Images' 'I Could Be Happy'. My versions are so, so much better."
• - The Australian: "Edge-heavy"
• - u2tour.de (user "u2tomorrow"): "A very reliable source told me, that beach clip No. 5 is on the album – as "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight". But they changed the version a lot, so I was not able to recognize it at first."
• - Hot Press: "Listeners looking for autobiographical insight, meanwhile, should proceed immediately to the Will.i.am and string section-assisted 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight', a real grower which features such revelatory lines as 'There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet/And there's a part of you that wants me to riot'."
• - Irish Independent: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," for instance, is a massively uplifting number that's bound to be a live favourite when U2 take the show on the road this summer. There's humour too, as Bono, tongue firmly in cheek, notes: "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear." Never a truer word spoken, Bono."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a sleeper. It's very poppy, but doesn't catch you right away like, say, "Vertigo" or "Beautiful Day" did. I find myself singing it in my head, though. Edge's guitar sounds so clear."
• - "Just a little hit, every beauty needs to go out with an idiot. How can you stand next to the truth, and not see it? Oh, a change of heart comes to.
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain, as you start out the climb"; "Every generation has a chance to change the world". "There`s a part of me that wants to riot". “Baby, baby, baby”. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life, I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight.")

6. "Get On Your Boots"

• (- Q-source: "among other instantly striking tracks"; "a heaving electro-rocker that may mark the destination point the band had been seeking on POP"
• - Q-magazine: "formerly titled "Sexy Boots", this demented electro grunge employs a proto-rockn'roll riff, but propelled into the future, with a hip-hop twist in the middle. Features Bono in flirtacious, self depreciating mode: "I dont wanna talk about wars between nations""
• -RS-source: "the likely first single, this blazing, fuzzed-out rocker picks up where "Vertigo" left off. "It started just with me playing and Larry drumming," the Edge recalls. "And we took it from there""
• -RS-article: "with a furry monster of a fuzz-guitar riff"; "power chords that, per Bono, echo the Damned's "New Rose"; verses that share a rhythm with "Subterranean Homesick Blues"; and a chorus that mixes whimsy and ardor: "Get on your boots/Sexy boots/You don't know how beautiful you are." "A hundred fifty beats per minute, three minutes, the fastest song we've ever played," Bono says, playing the tune at deafening volume in an airy studio lounge after dinner. "We're not really ready for adult-contemporary just yet."
• -Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog I: "expected to be heard on the radio within ten days, maybe sooner"; "a lot of electronic sounds"; "Larry plays some kind of electronic drums, too"; Bono rhymes "submarine" with "gasoline"";
"the original title was "Sexy Boots, then it was "Get Your Boots On", now it's "Get On Your Boots"; "the new U2 single will be called "Get On Your Boots" (note the subtle title change)"
• - Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog II: "some new sounds, that could only come from an Eno/Lanois production"; "left me with a feeling similar to what I experienced when I heard “The Fly” for the first time"; "not a back-to-basics guitar/bass/drums track like “Vertigo” or even “Beautiful Day”; there’s some definite sonic evolution going on here"; "it does rock" (no ballad); "Bono manages to rhyme “submarine” with “gasoline” and says something about “don’t talk to me about the state of nations”; "there’s a portion of the melody that somehow reminds me of the cadence of the verses in Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up,” but as I write this, I’m not completely sure"; "part of the song reminded me of…something else"; "Did I like it? I didn’t hate it—but I need to hear it more before I really make up my mind about what I think about….anything to do with the song"; "filled with far more subtleties and complexities that anyone can hear with one listen"
• - skott100: "opens with a drum fill, not unlike "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn & John"; "signature riff is muscular and catchy in the "Vertigo" vein, with a rapid fire vocal pattern"; "Alan Cross compared the verses to "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello, and I can't say I disagree with that. It's evocative but I wouldn't call it a rip-off"; "chorus goes all middle eastern with Bono singing "You don't know how beautiful you are""; "half-tempo breakdown/bridge with a processed drum loop ... like John Bonham playing on a Massive Attack song before the song lurches back into the main riff for another verse and chorus"; "feels like a dense 7 minute epic crammed into about 3 and a half minutes"; "most striking are the drums"; "never heard so many layers of rhythm on a U2 song"; "a lot of very processed drums (I thought of Kasabian at one point and N*E*R*D* at another) and loops going on, coming in and out of the mix"; "at points it goes back to traditional sounding drums for emphasis"; "extremely tasteful, but complex enough to make my head spin"; "this is not U2 by the numbers"; "not a "return to form" or "back to basics""; "his is, what the kids like to call, some OTHER shit"; "the 21st Century version of U2"; "hey aren't looking back to their own catalog for inspiration anymore, if this song is any indication"
• - Billboard: "classic u2 rocker; ""premieres Monday (Jan. 19) on Dublin's 2FM. It will be released digitally Feb. 15 and physically the following day"; "the group will perform "Get on Your Boots" Feb. 18 at the BRIT Awards ceremony in London"
• - Dave Fanning: "the ‘Vertigo’ of the album - although a completely different kind of song"; "it’s very U2"; "a big song with lots of layers but not overproduced"; "great track"
• - Daniel Lanois: "a hell of a groove"; "some of the sounds were provided by The Edge himself. The main guitar parts"; "some nice bits of processing in there, there is a a little sound that sort of scoots by, like a high speed sound effect, that’s one that was born through the process of studio manipulation, and it’s one that stuck"; "a nice interesting mixture of technology and hand-played drums"; "there is a separate track that features kind of a bass drum loop that we did of Larry, and it runs along side of the main kit and is featured in certain sections of it"; "the marriage of hand-played and the electro combination"
• - Independent: "the belting single that shot straight to the top of the Irish airplay charts here stands as the halfway tune."
• - u2tour.de: "fits perfectly in the album's flow"; "awakens new life while providing a little musical recreation"; "not quite as dense and complex in structure as the previous tracks"
• Brunocam: "It is the single in advance, the subject most virulent of the whole disc and one of the most powerful and fastest-ever of the quartet, mixed strident guitar rock & roll, and a synthetic elements that Bono shouted: "Get on your boots / Sexy boots / You do not know how beautiful you are."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "The first single and perplexing some already. A mess of dirty guitars and urgent energy play through electronic bibs and bobs. You can hear Fly-era U2, with a little less edge, but here something niggling through earlier songs becomes clearer: they have been listening to Brooklyn's art rockers TV On For Radio. It makes some sense: TV On The Radio spent their youth listening to Eno and Bowie too."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Weakest track, why first single?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The first single, and oh, Escape Club – how wonderful you must be feeling at this moment! Ever since "Wild, Wild West" vanished from the charts in 1988 you've been waiting for a sign that you were something more than just another one hit wonder, so hearing U2 re-write the song must warm the cockles of your heart. And Elvis Costello must be smiling too, humming 'Pump It Up' under his breath as he dials his lawyers and wonders what sort of settlement to demand."
• - The Australian: "the current single pushes new buttons, with the Edge's heavy metal guitar riff and Bono's semi-rap leaving it sitting oddly, but rewardingly, somewhere between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Elvis Costello."
• "The future needs a big kiss, winds blows with a twist. Never seen a moon like this, can you see it too? Night is falling everywhere, rockets at the fun fair, Satan loves a bomb scare, but he won’t scare you. Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. You free me from the dark dream, candy floss ice cream. All our kids are screaming, but the ghosts aren’t real. Here’s where we gotta be: Love and community, laughter is eternity, if joy is real. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up. We’re into growing up, women of the future, hold the big revelations. I got a submarine, you got gasoline, I don’t want to talk about wars between nations. Not right now.
Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. Not right now. Bossy boots. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. Hey sexy boots, I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations. Sexy boots, yeah. Let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, now. God, I’m going down, I don’t wanna drown now, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, get on your boots, get on your boots, get on your boots, yeah hey hey")

7. "Stand Up Comedy"

• (- Q-source: "swaggering"; "wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks"; "home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas.""
• - Q-magazine: "rousing groove-based rocker with shades of Led Zep and Cream. Edge mentions that they're trying to keep Stand Up in a rough state and not overproduce it by putting it through Pro-Tools which cleans up imperfections"
• - RS-source: "Stand Up Comedy"; "another hard rock tune, powered by an unexpectedly slinky groove and a riff that lands between the Beatles' "Come Together" and Led Zep's "Heartbreaker." Edge recently hung out with Jimmy Page and Jack White for the upcoming documentary It Might Get Loud, and their penchant for blues-based rock rubbed off: "I was just fascinated with seeing how Jimmy played those riffs so simply, and with Jack as well," he says"
• - RS-article: "the words, which he keeps revising, have an almost hip-hop-like cadence: "Stand up, 'cause you can't sit down... Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady... Come on, you people, stand up for your love."; "We haven't quite gotten this right, and I'm the problem", Bono says of the tune, which is called "Stand Up Comedy" — at least for the moment. Tomorrow it will have new lyrics."; "the groove is slinkier than anything U2 have done in years."
• - Dave Fanning: "the nearest thing they’ve ever done to Led Zeppelin"
• - Independent: "grungy pop with strident drumming from Larry Mullen"
• - u2tour.de: "A song , that shows the influence of the sessions of The Edge, together with guitarist Jack White and Jimi Page for the film "It might get loud" had. "Stand Up Comedy" seems like straight from the 70s and could also fit on the soundtrack to "Across The Universe". A very rock, a catchy number, has all, a single needs. Here is finally The Edge "on fire".
• - Brunocam: "Another rocker, noisy and powerful. Bono pulls the voice, but it's the guitar that dominates. The fact that The Edge has participated in a documentary with Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) seems to have left marks, so the guitar evokes the Zeppelin of other times.To the original title - "Stand up," alluding to the humanist movement The Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty - was added "comedy" and listening to the song it is perceived why, what seems to be a moment of self-irony of Bono: " On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."
• Sunday Mail: "This proves the group are huge Led Zeppelin fans because Edge's guitar riff has a real Jimmy Page feel. In terms of being musically adventurous, it's not for the faint-hearted and definitely up there with "Exit" from The Joshua Tree in 1987."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A strutting 70s guitar finds the Edge channelling his inner Marc Bolan while that Brooklyn fractured dance of rock feels returns (and then becomes almost pure Madchester ecstasy nightclub). The "song" runs out a little earlier than the groove does but it doesn't seem fatal at all."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Huge, huge and not in a contrived way. Sounds like a war march and then flips it all upside down in the chorus. Bono in self deprecating mode, "I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both" he sings over the biggest edge riff ever. Pure anarchy."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Sorry, Red Hot Chili Peppers: just in case you were thinking of recording a version of The Stone Roses' career-ending "Love Spreads", be advised that U2 have beaten you to the punch. Bono says something about the Twin Towers and falling down and standing up, and then drops the line "Cross the road like a little old lady". You'd think that a band of U2's status could extend a deadline so that their lead singer could write some lyrics, surely?"
• - The Australian: "slightly funky"
• - Hot Press: "You also get the strong suspicion that Bono's talking about himself on 'Stand Up Comedy', another dirty white funk workout on which he declares: 'I can stand up for hope, faith, love/Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas/Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels'. Find me a Chris Martin line that self-deprecating and I'll buy you a pint."
• - Irish Independent: ""Stand Up Comedy" finds the frontman, who is given to wearing shoes with elevated soles, singing of "Napolean in high heels" before offering the killer line: "Be careful of small men with big ideas." The Edge's guitar playing is raw and dirty -- it's got Queens of the Stone Age written all over it. But the song fails to captivate. It just seems a little too contrived."
• - 'J2-D2': "probably my least favorite. It's a little U2-by-numbers, some of the lyrics are borderline, and it's not, like, subtle in any fashion. Edge's vocals feature a sweet echo effect, though, and his guitar has this nice slicey/piercing thing going on. I suspect it'll be one of those songs that gets a lot of live play on this tour and that in my dreams they would replace with, like, "Last Night on Earth." It's just Bono at his preachiest on the album—it evokes the same reaction I had to "Peace on Earth" and "Love and Peace or Else." The music is pretty good, though, still." 


• - "… beauty, dictator of the heart. I could stand up, for hope, faith, love, while I’m getting over certainty. Stop helping God across the road,
like a little old lady. Out from under your bed…";"On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas." “I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both”. “Stand up for your love!”. "Cross the road like a little old lady".)

8. "Fez -- Being Born"

• - Billboard: "more experimental fare".
• - Independent: "on first listen, easily the album's most adventurous and challenging track with ambient synthy hooks"
• - u2tour.de: "The first minute, only electronic set pieces to hear"; "a phone ringing, a sample from "Get On Your Boots" - until then, the actual song starts". "Edge's guitar classic, keyboards set, before Bono's voice only restless, then to fast beats, melodically intervenes"; "partial U2 sound here unconsumed and crude as the early 80s on their first singles"; "in the middle part sound synthetic and almost reminiscent of Depeche Mode"; "But the guitar is the direction, Bono with few vocals"
• - Brunocam: "The African experience - recorded in Fez, Morocco - is the subject, one of the best and most adventurous. "Six o 'clock on the autoroute / Burning rubber, burning chrome / Boy of Cadiz and ferry home / Atlantic sea cut glass / African Sun at last" Bono launches, through a compact sound architecture. It is perhaps the one that best summarizes the album, combining the spirit of direct rock and recent rib adventurous 90s."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Starts off like incidental music from the last "Prince of Persia" video game, then snaps into a prog rock section while Bono sings about fire. Dammit, we should have started a drinking game based on references to fire. Too late now, I suppose."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: " a brief flashback to the feel of 'The Unforgettable Fire'"
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This seems to be two songs hooked together, one a collection of odd sounds and shapes, the other a pulsing rock number which becomes something else again when the sonic oddness returns prior to a drifting away ending."
• - 'Walt Disney': "A nice break. A definite 'ZooTV' feel to it, sounds harrowing and claustrophobic on parts, but then spreads it wings like a sonic eagle. 2 songs in one, will take a few listens but ends like a funeral march, very gloomy."
• - Hot Press: "Things get even more experimental on 'Fez - Being Born', a wonderfully intriguing song of two halves that starts with disembodied voices, FM static and other ambient weirdness before giving way to Edge's trademark chiming guitar. Unconventional, but it works."
• - Irish Independent: "The album's most intriguing song is "FEZ -- Coming Home," which is a triumph of Eno's yen for experimentalism over U2's big sound. (In fact, Eno and Lanois share songwriting credits on several tracks.) It was one of the first songs recorded -- during sessions in the Moroccan city that gives the song its title -- and it's a hint about what this album could have sounded like if the band really had thrown caution to the wind. Its electro-ambient intro features the sound of birds singing and the bustle of Moroccan life (it was apparently recorded in the outdoor courtyard of an ancient riad) and Bono referencing the "let me in the sound" line from "Get On Your Boots," before it dissolves into a scattergun rock that shifts and slides into unexpected territory. The tempo changes are surprising and the song boasts a daring that the bulk of the other tracks, for all their merits, simply lack."
• - 'J2-D2': "is just fun; the second half sounds like "The Unforgettable Fire" on acid. They couldn't really perform it live, but it won't surprise me if a recording of the "Lemme in the sound" callback at the start opens the show or the encore. There are vocals in "Being Born," but they really blend into the music. It's kind of a tough track to pay attention to, if you know what I mean. I know that sounds weird, but it's a lot like the second half of Unforgettable Fire, in that the words are so deep in the mix that you don't start mindlessly singing along. There are backing vocals, but they're just echoing Bono's main vocal—vaguely reminiscent of the backing vocals on "Lemon," now that I think about it."
• - If it is identical with the working title track "Tripoli", we do know more:-
- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Bono talks about a song called "Tripoli", which is a guy on a motorcycle, a Moraccan french cop, whos going AWOL. He drives though France and Spain down to this village outside of Cadiz where you can actually see the fires of Africa burning"
• - RS-source: "this strikingly experimental song lurches between disparate styles, including near-operatic choral music, ZOOROPA-style electronics, and churning arena rock"
• RS-article: "ambitious possible album opener, which violently lurches between different sections"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - "Six o 'clock on the autoroute, Burning rubber, burning chrome. Boy of Cadiz and ferry home, Atlantic sea cut glass, African Sun at last")

9. "White As Snow"

• - NOT identical with the working title track "Winter", that won't be on the album, but will be a track on the 'Linear' film project. Source: Werners Wereld: Het nieuwe album van U2: gaat dat zien!. So the rumours, that the track was discarded for the album are true.
• - Independent: "a stark, stripped back and striking tune with imploring vocals"
• - u2tour.de: "This quiet and short track leads almost the end of the album"; "starts with an atmospheric electronic noise, through which the sound of a soulful acoustic guitar sets"; "it is expected formally supporting the voice of Johnny Cash, but Bono is using his voice here similarly intense". "The song is about forgiveness and how your own brother can become a stranger to you". "Musically reminiscent in parts of "Springhill Mining Disaster"
• Brunocam: "Atmospheric acoustic ballad, about a soldier lost in snow in Afghanistan. "Where I came from there were no hills at all / The land was flat, straight highway and the wider / My brother and i would drive for hours" recalls Bono, travel by the mind of a soldier lost in their memories, in an epic track."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A ballad not just inspired by but evoking wide spaces and open skies. There are low rumbles and darting sounds, brass even. Could this be U2 aiming for Bruce Springsteen in his solo tales-of-the-desert mode?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Another eerie moment, when the guitars seem to melt into orchestrations only to burst out again. Bono sounds creepy on places, come get me ghosts he sings (I think) over a Johnny Cash like apocalyptic ballad. Very depressing second half so far. Bono sounds like a character, like Macphisto on his death bed. Very surreal, gosh, this is cool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The absolute highlight without any doubt: a superb country lament. Bono makes a decent fist of it with Edge's down-tuned guitar the perfect accompaniment, but it would have been utterly perfect for the late Johnny Cash to wrap his weathered voice around (and would be one hell of a companion piece to the Cash/U2 collaboration "The Wanderer"). Bono's nature references – seeds, earth, snow, fruit – make perfect sense in this context. See, Bono, you can do it when you try."
• - The Australian: "adopts a more sombre tone, providing an acoustic contrast to the electrical storms on either side."
• - Hot Press: "U2 revisit Rattle And Hum 'Van Diemen's Land' with the sparse 'White As Snow', a track written for Jim Sheridan's Afghanistan war movie Brothers. Both lyrically and musically it trays into the same territory as Springsteen's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, with an extra twist of Leonard Cohen for good measure."
• - Irish Independent: "One of the slower tracks on the album, its intro recalls Sigur Ros while, later, a French horn highlights the evocative lyrics."
• - 'J2-D2': "is simply gorgeous. Like an old folk song, almost."

• - "Where I came from there were no hills at all, the land was flat. The highway, straight and wide. My brother and I would drive for hours
like we’d years, instead of… ". “Come get me ghosts”. “The water was icy, the road refuses strangers.” “They were hunting in the woods.”)

10. "Breathe"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "still a work in progress"; "Eno suggests, this is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on"
• - Q-magazine: "Arabic cello gives way to joyful chorus. Brian Eno says this is U2's best ever song. It's 8pm and Eno, Bono and Will.i.am are on Olympic Studio 1 writing a cello part for a song called Breathe that U2 - a touch ambitiously - are only beginning to record in ths final fortnight, never mind mix – the singer belts out a rollicking vocal featuring door-to-door salesman, a cockatoo and a chorus that begins "Step out into the street, sing your heart out""
• - RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article: "tweaks on his computer what he (The Edge) estimates to be the 80th incarnation"
• - Independent: "starts off with a trip-hop beat and cello playing before transforming into an all-out rocker"
• - u2tour.de: "booming drums open this song; "Bono on the fast"; "only the chorus is like a U2 classic"; "a dense and intense sound experience, which recalls carefully "Until The End Of The World"; "the song is known Beachclip No. 2."
• - Brunocam: "Eastern slow start with allusions to the level of the arrangements, but then there is a growing continuum of intensity, what is the favorite song of producer Brian Eno. It is indicative of a more complex disc - each song integrates various dynamics - that his two predecessors."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This is pushier at immediately, coming with a bit of attitude. Did Bono really just say he is "not somebody's cockatoo"? He definitely says "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease" and it's an apt description of this land of atmosphere and aggression."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Save the best til last. One of the most uplifting choruses I can remember. Breaks the recent gloom in a profound way. Just a testament to how cohesive this album feels, like a musical journey, ha! I'm serious though."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Frantically bowed strings hit harmonics over Mullen, Jr's thundering tom toms, before the rest of the band burst in at cross-rhythms and Bono starts up a scansion-free declamatory vocal like a third-rate Bob Dylan. Still, once it locks in the chorus it all makes sense. Either the album's picking up towards the end or I'm undergoing some sort of musical Stockholm Syndrome in which I fall in love with my captors as a coping mechanism. That said, Edge does pull out a three-note guitar solo that suggests he's never even seen a guitar before, and it's nice of Tears For Fears to let U2 use their keyboard sounds."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"; "contains all of the album's recurring themes - love, hope, seizing the day, celebrating life."
• - Hot Press: "Eno has decided that the penultimate track, 'Breathe', is 'the best U2 song ever'. While that assessment is perhaps a little over the top, the Beatles-esque track is a genuine standout with Bono evoking the spirit of St John Devine and unnamed ju-ju men, as a hyperactive cello and Larry's tom-toms fight it out in the background."
• - Irish Independent: "finds Bono in semi spoken-word mode, although the song doesn't do enough to draw the listener in."
• - 'J2-D2': "I felt about it a little like I felt about "Stand Up." It grows quickly, though, and it's one of my favorites on the album now. It takes the preachiness of "Stand Up" and turns it around into this awesome statement of joyful resolve. They had better play it live."
• - "…things I need you to know. Three, coming from a long line of traveling sales people on my mother's side, I wasn’t gunna buy just anyone’s cockatoo. So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home?
Would you? These days are better than that, these days are better than that"; “Walk out, into the street, sing your heart out”. "not somebody's cockatoo". "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease")

11. "Cedars Of Lebanon"

• (- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Daniel Lanois instigated closer that finds Bono imagining himself as a weary, lovelorn war correspondent "squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline". Ends with the possibly telling line "Choose your enemies carefully cos they will define you""
• - RS-source: ""On this album, you can feel what is going on in the world at the window, scratching at the windowpane," says Bono, who sings this atmospheric ballad from the point of view of a war correspondent"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "a reflective parting glass for album number 12, finishing on the line, "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you"
• - u2tour.de: "gloomy keyboards, backed by minimalist lead guitar playing the last song on the album"; "Bono speaks more than he sings and acts very dominant on this track. Drip-end beats and a strong bass line reminding of "If You Were That Velvet Dress." Bono sings from the perspective of a war reporter in Lebanon and the recurring line "return the call to home" sounds like a distant, electronic noise"
• - Brunocam: "Bono wears the role of a war correspondent for atmospheric evocation not far from songs like "With or without you." The tone is confessional, the reflective verses end: "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you / Make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you / They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friend."
• - Sunday Mail: "Bono almost speaks his vocal over a more hymnal, hypnotic backing which leads to a beautiful, almost choral, hook. Some atmospheric Edge guitar creeps in and builds the mood. This song is so good you don't want it to end. A fitting finale to a classic U2 album."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Lyrically and musically strongly reminiscent of a film noir narration (Bono as Walter Neff? Why not?), the central character is a man cut off from affection and life in general. Some really interesting harmonies - Eno at work again - and a closing set of lines worth pondering for implications. "Choose your enemies well for they will define you ... they are going to last with you longer than your friends"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Back to the darkness with glimpses of light. Like the end of the horizon is just another beginning. So many profound lines, where did this Bono go?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Yep, they close on a ballad – and it's about world suffering. "Squeeze a complicated life into a simple headline," Bono sighs, and we all agree. "Yes, Bono," we weep, as one. "Oh media, when will you learn?" Then we go to a different perspective, that of a displaced person in a warzone. "A soldier brings oranges," Bono sings, "he got out of a tank." And with that clanging line the magic is dispelled, like the unexpected slam of a toilet door. It's a nice idea, and the tune's a good one, but honestly: some sort of lyric editor would have been wise."
• - The Australian: "adopty a more sombre tone"
• - Hot Press: "If ever there was a song for the times, it's the closing 'Cedars of Lebanon', a beautiful half-spoken ballad in which Bono narrates from the point of view of a weary war correspondent - the thing is that you just know that there's a lot of the U2 frontman in there too. 'Choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you/Make them interesting 'cos in some ways they will mind you/They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends/Gonna last with you longer than your friends', he pronounces, before the song does the musical equivalent of The Sopranos' last scene and comes to an abrupt halt, ending the record on a suitably low key and yet indisputably high note."
• - Irish Independent: "Closer "Cedars of Lebanon" is the most overtly political song, and a real grower. Like many of its siblings on this album, its moody atmospheric texture recalls Achtung Baby-era U2. It's a downbeat song on which to conclude an album brimming with life and hope."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Wake Up Dead Man," because of the tempo and because it ends so suddenly, on a somber note—and I guess because some of Bono's lyrics approach "Wake Up"'s quality, not in content, but in precision. It doesn't seem like one they'll break out for the tour. It doesn't have a solo like "Love Is Blindness". (There's a bridge, I guess, but not a raging solo like that.) It's a quiet, simple song—very restrained."
• - "Woke up in my clothes, in a dirty heap. Spent the night trying to make a deadline. Squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline. I have your face in an old Polaroid, tidying the children’s clothes & toys, you’re smiling back at me. I took the photo from the…";“the shitty world sometimes produces a rose”. “the best of us are masters of compression.” "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you, make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you, they're not there in the beginning but when your story ends, gonna last with you longer than your friend." “Return the call to home”)

Tracklist

1. "No Line on the Horizon" (4.12)
2. "Magnificent" (5.24)
3. "Moment of Surrender" (7.24)
4. "Unknown Caller" (6.03)
5. "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (4.14)
6. "Get On Your Boots" (3.25)
7. "Stand Up Comedy" (3.50)
8. "Fez - Being Born" (= 'Tripoli'?) (5.17)
9. "White As Snow" (4.41)
10. "Breathe" (5.00)
11. "Cedars of Lebanon" (4.13)

bonus-tracks
On the contrary to earlier rumours, obviously there will be bonus tracks for the album. German i-tunes does list now for the big package not only "Anton Corbijn's exclusive film" and the "Digital Booklet" - but also two other, additional tracks as bonus:
- "No Line On The Horizon 2"
- "Get On Your Boots (Punk Version)"

On 'Linear' will appear the track "Winter"
• (- Q-source: "featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno"
• - Q-magazine: "6 minute ballad. Echoes of Simon & Garfunkel in this poignant, acoustic string laden ballad about a soldier in the snow of Afghanistan. Will appear in the new film 'Brothers' starring Tobey Maguire about the emotional fallout of the war. Edge on backing vocals with Bono for Winter""
• -RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article:"lovely discarded ballad"

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Maybe at the time the film was shot the song was still called Winter before being renamed. The thing is, if White As Snow isn't Winter, the first one turned up in the eleventh hour - and when Winter was no longer an album track.

We've got two 'doubles' so far:

"Tripoli"/"Fez-Being Born"

and

"Winter"/"White As Snow"


... the question is, whether these tune-pairs are completely different tunes, maybe written from the same character's point of view. From "Winter"/"White As Snow" we know, that they are different tracks, varying in length and topic – and finally appearing on different formats, too.

"Tripoli"/"Fez-Being Born"" still has the chance, to be the same tune IMO, maybe being two different cuts on the producing time-line. But we can only know more, if more details on "Fez" will come out, who have heard the album reagrding the chorus, the story telling, the lyrics etc. – just like 'J2-D2' has bravely achieved with his review. Thanx again!

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

UPDATE (02/16/2009, with a detailed review of Neil McCormick)

An analytical summary of NLOTH from the journalist's view, with the tunes in a casual running-order:

1. First the Q-source from November visiting the Olympic Studios and a private session with Bono ...

2. The Q-magazine snippets, that might capture nearly the same period than the first source and might have the same roots as controbution for Q's special ...

3. The RS-review of the tracks from early December (with the wrong date, 22nd January, but claiming to be part of the 7th January issue!!!)

4. The current RS-article (01/07/2009), that was obviosuly written on the same occasion as the RS-review. This article confirms our impression here in the forum, that the time, Q and RS visited U2, the work was far from finished. One consequence: At least in parts the known album tracks are 'only' working titles; to create a tracklist for NLOTH out of this, is pure speculation. "We're at the point where half the album is done, and half the album is in a state where anything can happen — and probably will" – says the Edge and thus, this is all we know here on the board regarding the different tunes...

5. The detailed (and officially by the mangement allowed?) Alan Cross statements and impressions on the new single "Get On Your Boots", who's yet to be the first known to us journalist, who obviously has listened to the track (Twitter / alancross).

6. The 2nd detailed review of the single by skott100 (I got on "Boots" this morning! (Single review))

7. Including the official tracklist, confirmed by u2.com and new descriptions by billboard.com

8. Dave Fanning's reviews

9. Daniel Lanois in an interview with Alan Cross

10. "Independent article", that refers to the album's playback in Dublin on St. Stephen's Greeen (01/29/09)

11. The review on "www.u2tour.de" (in rough translation from German in English), that unfortunately doesn't tell us much more about the album's themes & lyrics, but at least about the sounds. The reviewer wants to confirm: "Fez" is NOT "Tripoli"! – which might be true or not. I don't believe the source on u2tour.de, instead I do think "Fez" is identical with "Tripoli" (the 'Cadiz', 'landscape', 'journey'-theme is so striking and it would be strange, if U2 had written two 'experimental' tunes with the same topic. So I left the descriptions for "Tripoli" in ...)

12. A reviewer's translation from Brunocam, that gives us more insight in the lyrics

13. Sunday Mail

14. The Sydney Morning Herald, with some more insight on sounds

15. Review by interferencer 'Walt Disney'

16. Review by 'Andrew P Street', who dislikes the album and, yes, bashes ...

17. The Australian

18. Melbourne Herald Sun

19. Hot Press

20. Irish Independent

21. Review by 'J2-2D'

22. Review by Neil McCormick

23. Lyrics, we already (think to) know

... enjoy and thanx for keeping this 'analytical' thread alive!


NO LINE ON THE HORIZON: TRACK BY TRACK SUMMARY


1. "No Line On The Horizon"

• (- Q-source: "further unfinished"; "two versions were extant: the first is another TUF-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punky Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace", "Bono very excited about the second version"
• (- Q-magazine: "began life as a slow paced Eno-esque ambient treatment, before being dramatically reworked in the Olympic Sessions into an abrasive punk-rock tune akin to Vertigo, with its "No! Line!" chorus chant"
• - RS-source: "the title track's relentless groove began as a group improvisation. "It's very raw and very to the point," says the Edge. "It's like rock & roll 2009""
• -RS-article: "churning, tribal groove and a deadpan chorus"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - Independent: "the opening title track kicks off with a crunchy, distorted guitar riff from the Edge"
• - tour.de: "booming guitar riffs", "slamming bass", "Bono's voice cries, hurts, and only slowly gets more melodic"; "the catchy chorus is a surprise, carried vocally by The Edge"; "in the middle the song is slower", "classic U2 song structures, before it gains more speed again"; "at the end guitar parts that remind of Lady With The Spinning Head"; "a dense atmospheric song"; "U2's music in a changed world of sounds"
• - Brunocam: "Characteristic of the U2 song, the epic sense in growing, guitars sometimes quiet, sometimes strident, with Bono singing "i know a girl who's like the sea / I watch her everyday changing for me / Oh yeah." Originally had a very environmental treatment, through the production of Brian Eno, but in the end it became an abrasive rock song."
• - Sunday Mail: "This opens with a loud sonic drone before Bono sings: "I knew a girl who's like the sea/I watch her changing every day for me."
Then Larry's drums kick in and the song lifts off. It could be their best live stadium opener since Zoo Station."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Buzzy guitars and offkilter Enoesque noises vie for attention while Bono strains for effect as he reflects both the tension and the intensity of the song. The chorus (not a big one; more a devolving of the verse) retains the tension, but puts it in a gentler setting. Bono seems to be singing to, or about, a girl, not for the last time on the album, but it's not easy to decipher."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Best opener since "Zoo". The chorus is really a hushed version of the verse until the last 30 seconds when the song erupts into a punk rock death chant. Sonically brilliant, like an Eno junkyard full of space age trinkets. Fast, yet slow, yet fast. Ending sounds like of all bands, pixies, yes, pixies, madness."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "A Bo Diddley beat heralds the beginning of Brian Eno's new album, featuring U2. In fact, the cluttered production and layers of keys sound not dissimilar to what Eno did with James circa Whiplash. And then they staple some ethnic percussion to the thing for no good reason."
• - The Australian: "The bombast, the clever use of dynamics and the rhythm section's funk-fused rock groove are strikingly familiar". "Best example of these elements' collective power, with Bono milking a huge anthemic chorus. It has stadium written all over it."
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "The fantastic title track has a wall of distorted guitar that recalls a previous envelope-pushing moment, "The Fly"."
• - Hot Press: "The collection's only other ball-busting, out and out rocker is the title-track, which lives up to the 'Buzzcocks meets Bow Wow Wow' billing it's been given by its author, who mizes metaphysics with mischief-making as he recounts: 'She said, 'Time is irrelevant, it's not linear/Then she put her tongue in my ear'."
• - Irish Independent: "It starts off strongly with the title track, a barnstorming stadium rock tune that could have come from the songwriting stable of Kings of Leon."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a raucous, exciting start to the proceedings—much better than the alternate version—and the only disappointment is that it's wild enough that you think maybe you're getting another Zooropa. You're not. That's not a bad thing, but I would love another Zooropa."
• - Neil McCormick: "grittily urgent yet ethereal title track".
• - "I know a girl who's like the sea, I watch her changing every day for me. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. One day she's still, the next she swells,
you can hear the universe in her sea shells. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line. I know a girl with a hole in her heart,
she said infinity is a great place to start. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, Oh no you know it’s gonna be, hold on. The lady said me that I could ???? lover, I wanna beat it (o be) and see ????. No, no line on the horizon, no line... The songs in my head is now on my mind. I put you on pause, I'm trying to rewind and replay. Every night I have the same dream, I'm hatching some plot, scheming some scheme. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. I'm traffic cop, rue de marais. The sirens are wailing but it's me that wants to get away, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line ...")


2. "Magnificent"

• (- Q-source: "classic U2-isms"; "echoes TUF's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep"
• - Q-magazine: "slow building anthem with the ambience of TUF and laced with the wide eyed wonder of U2's earlier albums. Edge here is at his most dynamic. Features the line:"Only love can reset your mind""
• - RS-source: ""Only love can leave such a mark," Bono roars on what sounds like an instant U2 anthem. Will.i.am has already done what Bono calls "the most extraordinary" remix of the tune"
• - RS-article: "familiarly chiming U2 anthem"
• - Independent: "dancey electro flourishes introduce an atmospheric track with moody leanings"
• - u2tour.de: "begins with loud drums, there are loops and riffs, chasing each other, before Edge's classical guitar sound sets in"; "Bono starts singing his part with the title of the song"; "a very melodical song, perhaps one of the best on the whole album"; "but also one that would have fit on previous U2 albums"; "also new layers of sound and would perhaps still feel fine on 'Achtung Baby'"; "a strong coda finishes the song, which we already know as Beachclip No. 4."
• - Brunocam: "One of the songs that promises immediate membership. "Only love can reset your mind" Bono sings, among the environments that lead to the U2 album "Unforgettable Fire", in combination with the most direct route rock of recent albums. There are electronic effects, orchestral arrangements that evoke the period "The Joshua Tree" and a balance of typical song of love - "I was born to sing for you / I did not have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you my voice back."
• - Sunday Mail: "A future single choice which more than lives up to its bold title. The Edge's driving guitar gives the song a New Year's Day-style mood.
Bono is in great form when he sings: "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up." He's dead right because, just two numbers in, the album already has a classic feel."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "More of those odd sounds behind treated guitars and synthesisers and the song opens in two or would now be called "classic U2", the familiar 80s quick marching rhythm and the Edge's exploratory guitar lines. The most traditional sounding song on the album has Bono declaring that "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice" before confessing that "only love can leave such a mark"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "More familiar territory here with some brilliant "oh oh" that sound like a choir of Bonos and Edges, very lemon in parts but easier to swallow. Huge lush ending that will bring stadiums of peole to tears. Will be big big single. Anthem etc."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Kind interpretation: this harkens back to Zooropa, especially in the electro introduction. Less-kind version: hey, it's REM's 'Orange Crush', as rewritten by short-lived 90s synth darlings Republica! It's here that Bono's lyrics come to the fore and you realise that he's followed Bruce Springsteen into the late-period creative cul-de-sac where he's incapable of speaking in anything other than clichés and meaningless waffle. "Only love can leave such a mark," he declares, leaving the listener to answer the question, "what the bloody hell is he on about?" for themselves."
• - The Australian: "vaguely "Where The Streets Have No Name"-sounding"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "sounds like a single (once it has had a radio edit) with that signature Where the Streets Have No Name chugging guitar and drum momentum."
• - Hot Press: "'From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ... only love, only love can leave such a mark', he proclaims on the aptly-titled 'Magnificent', an eclectic mix - inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's The Magnificat, no less - of mournful Roy Orbison guitar, Killers-style synth stabs (this musical magpie lark works both ways, Brandon!) and anthemic flourishes which recall the likes of 'New Year's Day' and 'Pride'."
• - Irish Independent: "one of the album's stand-outs, the aptly titled "Magnificent." This already sounds like a classic U2 song that combines disparate eras of their career in a hugely appealing way -- War-meets-Zooropa, if you will. Even the most avowed U2-hater is likely to struggle to come up with reasons to dislike the Edge's irresistible guitars and muscular rhythm section. It's one of two songs featuring the keyboards of will.i.am and while the Black Eyed Peas' main man is hardly a distinct enough keys player to make you sit up and take notice, Eno's typically smart production takes all the elements and concocts the sort of epic five-minuter that's become his stock-in-trade. Let's just say one of his more recent "clients," Coldplay's Chris Martin, is likely to weep with envy when he hears it."
• - 'J2-D2': "is like Joshua Tree 2.0: a big, beautiful, classic Edge riff that makes you think of horses racing across a western plain, but with a few dancey touches. If it's not the biggest single off the album, I'll be surprised."

• - Neil McCormick: "the quite wonderful 'Magnificent', in which the U2/Eno/Lanois combo conjure up an instantly recognisable U2 classic in a love song with the flag waving pop drive of 'New Year's Day'."
• - "Magnificent (oh, oh), magnificent"; "I was born to sing for you, I didn't have a choice, but to lift you up. And sing whatever song you wanted me to, I give you my voice back." “Only love can leave such a scar”. “Only love can make such a mark”. “Only love can reset your mind”. “You and I will make a fire!”)

3. "Moment Of Surrender"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "a strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take"; "sounds like a great U2 moment in the spirit of "One""
• - Q-magazine: "georgiously melodic 7 minute song that already has the air of the U2 classic about it, with lyrics about dark stars and existential crises:"I did not notice the passers-by/And they did not notice me". Recorded in one take. This album's "One""
• - RS-source: "this seven-minute-long track is one of the album's most ambitious, merging a TJT-style gospel feel with a hypnotically loping bass line and a syncopated beat""
• -RS-article: "astonishing seven-minute"; "was played just one time — the band improvised the version on the album from thin air"
- Billboard: "more experimental fare"; "an electro-leaning track with an Eastern-inspired scale in the chorus, making it one of the weirder U2 tracks in decades."
• - Independent: "this particular moment of surrender sees a slowing down of the tempo and some delicate, bluesy guitar playing from the Edge"
• - u2tour.de: "among the slowest on the CD"; "dripping beats with an obvious influence from the Fez sessions open the track"; "strings and keyboards take over, before Bono's voice surprisingly shaky begins". "parts of the song almost remind of the Passengers' experiments"; "until Bono and Edge come to melodical chorus with Falsetto voice support"; "a gloomy mood"; "a much-layered sound carpet"; "Edge has a very expressive, but slow guitar solo in this song"
• - Brunocam: "Promises to be a classic in many concerts in the line of what happens with ballads like "One". Melodic song of seven minutes, starts slow, with lyrics about "dark stars" and with Bono's voice a little hoarse evoking existential crises - "I myself tied with wire / To let the horses free / Playing with the fire until the fire played with me. " The pace and syncope, the blues guitar of The Edge line of low and delicate environment, creating a hypnotic effect general."
• Sunday Mail: "Bono reckons this is one of the best songs U2 have written - and with their back catalogue, that's saying something. It opens with a guitar sound reminiscent of Where The Streets Have No Name and features a great Edge solo. In one of his most personal lyrics, Bono says: "I've been in every black hole/At the altar of the dark star/My body's now a begging bowl/That's begging to get back." A stunning song Springsteen or Dylan would be proud of."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A moodier track with irregular hand percussion (or a loop, or both) picking away at the edges of a bed of synthesisers and violin. The emotional tone is late '80s U2; the musical palette, with hints of electronica, is more early '90s. Before those richly layered Eno/Lanois-signature backing vocals arrived late in the piece Bono goes from enigmatic: "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free/playing with fire till the fire plays with me" (I think) to matters closer to the heart: "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Softer moment after the hugeness of the first two songs. Not as sonic but has a weird vibe. Will require further listening but sounds promising."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "After the Vangelis-via-Eno synth intro, Bono delivers a husky, passionate vocal for the album's first ballad, including what an early contender for Dumbest Line of 2009: "Playing with the fire, 'til the fire plays with you." The Edge pulls out a rudimentary slide guitar solo and then there's an oh-ah-oh wordless singalong that should be a hit at the half dozen shows where they try this one out before never playing it again."
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois leave their fingerprints all over the atmospheric Moment of Surrender - cathedral organs and a heavy bass groove spoiled only by Bono mentioning an ATM."
• - Hot Press: "a gospel-flavoured seven-minute epic that rides in on an orchestral wave, and includes such evocative cinematic couplets as: 'I was speeding on the subway/Through the stations of the cross/Every eye looking every other way/Counting down 'til the pain would stop'. If U2 were trying to conjure the same spiritual vibe as Marvin Gaye's 'Abraham, Martin, John' they've succeeded. 'Moment Of Surrender' is a big, sweeping track in the vein of 'With Or Without You' that's certain to become a U2 classic."
• - Irish Independent: "Songs like "Moment of Salvation" -- which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome -- is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul," "God" and "fire."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Miss Sarajevo", It doesn't ever feel like it's a seven-and-a-half-minute song. I'm not sure how, because it's not complicated at all, but it never gets boring."
• - Neil McCormick: "a pulsing, dreamily gorgeous 7 minute weave of synths, silvery guitars, sub-bass, handclaps, Arabic strings and soulful ululating vocals, in which the narrator experiences a spiritual epiphany at the very prosaic setting of an ATM machine. It is a beautiful piece that provides the album's beating heart and shows how far U2 can drift from their stereotype as a stadium rock band into unknown territory while still making something that touches the universal."
• - “We’ll set ourselves on fire.” “I did not notice them, they did not notice me”. “ATM machine”. "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free, playing with fire till the fire plays with me". "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me". "I've been in every black hole, at the altar of the dark star, my body's now a begging bowl, that's begging to get back.")

4. "Unknown Caller"

• (- Q-source: "stately"; "was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn"
• (- Q-magazine: "opens with the sound of birdsong recorded live in Fez. A middle eastern flavoured percussion loop drives this tale about a man"at the end of his rope" whose phone bizarrely begins texting him random instructions: "Reboot yourself","Password, enter here","You're free to go".
Dallas Schoo describes the song as "one of Edge's major solos in his life - you wont hear better than that on any other song""
• - RS-source: "this midtempo track could have fit on ATYCLB. "The idea is that the narrator is in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him," says the Edge"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "more intricate guitar fretwork that builds into a mid-tempo rocker featuring an organ and one of the album's lushest productions"
• - u2tour.de: "Bird, electrical noise and keyboards guide "Unknown Caller" on." "The song has exciting breaks in the sound structure, somewhere it always comes back to the classic U2 sound, before it comes consistently interrupted"; "almost the entire track sung in two voices". "In the chorus sings Bono "Restart and reboot yourself" and brings one of the key points, the lyrics may be the concept of the album: "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning"" "Edge with another strong guitar solo and Bono singing "Escape yourself and gravity." "This song is known as Beachclip No. 1"
• - Brunocam: "It is one of the songs where Bono is in a fictional role, someone in an altered state that is faced with a phone that speech. On the sound could belong to "All That You Can not Leave Behind," the half-time pace, silky, with light body and The Edge to leave its mark in an intricate guitar break."
• Sunday Mail: "An epic with double-tracked vocals, wailing Edge guitar and pounding Adam bass. It's a musical feast with so much going on it's initially tough to take it all in. In the chant-style chorus Bono sings: "Hear me/Cease to speak/That I may speak/Shush now." If nothing else, that's got to be another first for U2 - a pop song with "Shush" in the lyric."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Some really interesting ambient sounds in a late, late night setting more concerned with atmosphere than asserting itself. It's 3.33am "in a place of no consequence or company" and he's "speed dialling with no signal at all". The lyrics seem more impressionistic, disconnected and with a touch of David Bowie in the chanting underneath. And is that French horns at the end? Not usually heard on a U2 album."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Bono at his existensial best. Best lyrics since the fly and a guitar break that had every hair on my body stand on edge. You can really hear Eno at work here, sounds like it was written in space. Glorious madness, and an ending that sounds like Bono as a wolf, yelping his way to the end of the world. Drool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Eno has a good old fiddle until The Edge remembers what he did for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" – which will make a sweet segue during the tour. There's some genuinely great tasteful fingerpicking here, but it's about this point you'll start thinking "Hold on, aren't U2 best known for their stick-in-your-head choruses? What happened? And how did the last song go?""
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach, although the ... song fails to deliver on its early promise."
• - Hot Press: "The first reminder that Fez, in Morocco, was the birthplace for much of the album - and that Brian Eno was among the midwives - is provided by the birdsong and looped Arab percussion at the beginning of 'Unknown Caller', which also finds Bono giving his falsetto another impressive work out."
• - 'J2-D2': "eminds me of "The Three Sunrises," for some reason—maybe because the first vocal is Edge doing a high-pitched "Sunshine, sunshine..." And then it goes into him and Larry and I think Bono (it's at least two of them, but I think all three) going "Ohohohohohahoh..." a couple of times, followed by some bright UF-style guitar and percussion. And then Bono's main vocal comes right in. It is the weirdest song on the album, and the lyrical offenses ("Force quit! Move to trash!") stand out so much that it's a little hard to like it at first. The music is too interesting to ignore, though—like a proggy take on a classic U2 sound—so you get over it. I'm reminded of that Bono quote about Michael Jackson from (I think) the Bill Flanagan book: how Jackson's voice is the most beautiful sound in the world if you just ignore the words he's singing. And other than those glaring bits, the rest of the lyrics are quiet poignant."
• - Neil McCormick: "the fantastically odd 'Unknown Caller' hits a vein of emotional truth, when the spaced out singer is cast adrift on the soundbites of computer and communications networks ('Password, you enter here, right now / You know your name so punch it in') yet seems to find himself talking to the inner voice of God ("Escape yourself, and gravity / Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak"). Words and music dovetail in surprising ways that send the senses spinning."
• - Sunshine, sunshine. Sunshine, sunshine"; "Restart and reboot yourself". “you know your password, key it in.”
“3:33 in the morning and the numbers dropped off the clockface”. "in a place of no consequence or company". “Escape yourself and gravity.” "speed dialling with no signal at all". "Hear me, cease to speak, that I may speak, shush now.". "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning")

5. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

• (- Q-source: "straight up pop"; "the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at"
• - Q-magazine: "upbeat pop track with distinct echoes of 60's era Phil Spector, particularly the moment when its chorus disappears into a wash of reverb. Centres around the line: "I'll go crazy If I dont go crazy tonight""
• - RS-source: "It's kind of like this album's 'Beautiful Day' — it has that kind of joy to it," Bono says. With the refrain "I know I'll go crazy/If I don't go crazy tonight," it's the band's most unabashed pop tune since "Sweetest Thing"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Billboard: "classic U2 rocker"
• - Independent: "chiming guitar intro, a rousing Bono falsetto and the lyric, "Every generation has a chance to change the world"
• - u2tour.de: "one of the shorter songs of the album. The sound is taken from Larry's Drums, Edge comes with catchy guitar parts"; "quiet song sections before Larry comes back powerfully forward". "In the central part of it sometimes reminds a little of the atmosphere in "Sometimes You Can t make it on your own, while the end of the song sounds a lot like "Ultra Violet"-sounds"; "The text of the song is political, Bono sings: "There`s a part of me that wants to riot" and later "Every generation get's a chance to change the world". "I'll go crazy would also be a possible second or third single"
• - Brunocam: "As the title suggests, is one of the most daytime, and markedly festival pop along the lines of classics like "Beautiful Day", with some echoes, reverberations, refrain effective (I'll go crazy if i do not go crazy tonight " ), guitars and falsetto loose from Bono to proclaim "every generation gets a chance to change the world."
• Sunday Mail: "Thumping drums, pulsing bass and piano get this potential single off the launch pad. Musically, it has all the trademarks of a U2 classic with another soaring Bono vocal and great "woo-oo" hook on the chorus.")
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Mixed marriages don't always work, but should, seems to be the theme. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life/I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight." This is a straight out pop song with reverb guitars and Bono in high croon. It's also a U2 track they could do in their sleep, but no less attractive for that. The question is will it last as long as some of the others?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Sounds a bit weak next to UC but a glorious I song. Reminds me of something from the brill building days in the golden age of pop. Great lyrics, will be a huge single. Happiest song since BD"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "There are two ways that a song with this title should go. The first and most obvious is a Bon Jovi/Poison good time blues-rock party anthem, with a kick-ass guitar solo (preferably heralded with Jon Bon Jovi/Sebastian Bach screeching "Guitar!") and maybe some sweet harmonica in the coda. The other, less obvious but equally suitable way would be as a Bryan Adams/Aerosmith power ballad, which would also have a kick-ass guitar solo but would be less about partying and more about how crazy the love of a woman can drive a man, which would be a thinly-veiled sex metaphor. "I'm not perfect baby, as anyone can see," Adams/Steven Tyler would sing just before the chorus, "And though you drive me crazy, I'm still as crazy as a man can be." See? The song writes itself. The third option, which is the one that U2 went for, is to do an unmemorable mid-paced song with lyrics like "She's a rainbow, she loves the peaceful life" and a guitar riff lifted from Altered Images' 'I Could Be Happy'. My versions are so, so much better."
• - The Australian: "Edge-heavy"
• - u2tour.de (user "u2tomorrow"): "A very reliable source told me, that beach clip No. 5 is on the album – as "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight". But they changed the version a lot, so I was not able to recognize it at first."
• - Hot Press: "Listeners looking for autobiographical insight, meanwhile, should proceed immediately to the Will.i.am and string section-assisted 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight', a real grower which features such revelatory lines as 'There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet/And there's a part of you that wants me to riot'."
• - Irish Independent: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," for instance, is a massively uplifting number that's bound to be a live favourite when U2 take the show on the road this summer. There's humour too, as Bono, tongue firmly in cheek, notes: "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear." Never a truer word spoken, Bono."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a sleeper. It's very poppy, but doesn't catch you right away like, say, "Vertigo" or "Beautiful Day" did. I find myself singing it in my head, though. Edge's guitar sounds so clear."
• - Neil McCormick: "Oasis on steroids singalong pop"
• - "Just a little hit, every beauty needs to go out with an idiot. How can you stand next to the truth, and not see it? Oh, a change of heart comes to.
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain, as you start out the climb"; "Every generation has a chance to change the world". "There`s a part of me that wants to riot". “Baby, baby, baby”. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life, I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight.")

6. "Get On Your Boots"

• (- Q-source: "among other instantly striking tracks"; "a heaving electro-rocker that may mark the destination point the band had been seeking on POP"
• - Q-magazine: "formerly titled "Sexy Boots", this demented electro grunge employs a proto-rockn'roll riff, but propelled into the future, with a hip-hop twist in the middle. Features Bono in flirtacious, self depreciating mode: "I dont wanna talk about wars between nations""
• -RS-source: "the likely first single, this blazing, fuzzed-out rocker picks up where "Vertigo" left off. "It started just with me playing and Larry drumming," the Edge recalls. "And we took it from there""
• -RS-article: "with a furry monster of a fuzz-guitar riff"; "power chords that, per Bono, echo the Damned's "New Rose"; verses that share a rhythm with "Subterranean Homesick Blues"; and a chorus that mixes whimsy and ardor: "Get on your boots/Sexy boots/You don't know how beautiful you are." "A hundred fifty beats per minute, three minutes, the fastest song we've ever played," Bono says, playing the tune at deafening volume in an airy studio lounge after dinner. "We're not really ready for adult-contemporary just yet."
• -Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog I: "expected to be heard on the radio within ten days, maybe sooner"; "a lot of electronic sounds"; "Larry plays some kind of electronic drums, too"; Bono rhymes "submarine" with "gasoline"";
"the original title was "Sexy Boots, then it was "Get Your Boots On", now it's "Get On Your Boots"; "the new U2 single will be called "Get On Your Boots" (note the subtle title change)"
• - Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog II: "some new sounds, that could only come from an Eno/Lanois production"; "left me with a feeling similar to what I experienced when I heard “The Fly” for the first time"; "not a back-to-basics guitar/bass/drums track like “Vertigo” or even “Beautiful Day”; there’s some definite sonic evolution going on here"; "it does rock" (no ballad); "Bono manages to rhyme “submarine” with “gasoline” and says something about “don’t talk to me about the state of nations”; "there’s a portion of the melody that somehow reminds me of the cadence of the verses in Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up,” but as I write this, I’m not completely sure"; "part of the song reminded me of…something else"; "Did I like it? I didn’t hate it—but I need to hear it more before I really make up my mind about what I think about….anything to do with the song"; "filled with far more subtleties and complexities that anyone can hear with one listen"
• - skott100: "opens with a drum fill, not unlike "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn & John"; "signature riff is muscular and catchy in the "Vertigo" vein, with a rapid fire vocal pattern"; "Alan Cross compared the verses to "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello, and I can't say I disagree with that. It's evocative but I wouldn't call it a rip-off"; "chorus goes all middle eastern with Bono singing "You don't know how beautiful you are""; "half-tempo breakdown/bridge with a processed drum loop ... like John Bonham playing on a Massive Attack song before the song lurches back into the main riff for another verse and chorus"; "feels like a dense 7 minute epic crammed into about 3 and a half minutes"; "most striking are the drums"; "never heard so many layers of rhythm on a U2 song"; "a lot of very processed drums (I thought of Kasabian at one point and N*E*R*D* at another) and loops going on, coming in and out of the mix"; "at points it goes back to traditional sounding drums for emphasis"; "extremely tasteful, but complex enough to make my head spin"; "this is not U2 by the numbers"; "not a "return to form" or "back to basics""; "his is, what the kids like to call, some OTHER shit"; "the 21st Century version of U2"; "hey aren't looking back to their own catalog for inspiration anymore, if this song is any indication"
• - Billboard: "classic u2 rocker; ""premieres Monday (Jan. 19) on Dublin's 2FM. It will be released digitally Feb. 15 and physically the following day"; "the group will perform "Get on Your Boots" Feb. 18 at the BRIT Awards ceremony in London"
• - Dave Fanning: "the ‘Vertigo’ of the album - although a completely different kind of song"; "it’s very U2"; "a big song with lots of layers but not overproduced"; "great track"
• - Daniel Lanois: "a hell of a groove"; "some of the sounds were provided by The Edge himself. The main guitar parts"; "some nice bits of processing in there, there is a a little sound that sort of scoots by, like a high speed sound effect, that’s one that was born through the process of studio manipulation, and it’s one that stuck"; "a nice interesting mixture of technology and hand-played drums"; "there is a separate track that features kind of a bass drum loop that we did of Larry, and it runs along side of the main kit and is featured in certain sections of it"; "the marriage of hand-played and the electro combination"
• - Independent: "the belting single that shot straight to the top of the Irish airplay charts here stands as the halfway tune."
• - u2tour.de: "fits perfectly in the album's flow"; "awakens new life while providing a little musical recreation"; "not quite as dense and complex in structure as the previous tracks"
• Brunocam: "It is the single in advance, the subject most virulent of the whole disc and one of the most powerful and fastest-ever of the quartet, mixed strident guitar rock & roll, and a synthetic elements that Bono shouted: "Get on your boots / Sexy boots / You do not know how beautiful you are."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "The first single and perplexing some already. A mess of dirty guitars and urgent energy play through electronic bibs and bobs. You can hear Fly-era U2, with a little less edge, but here something niggling through earlier songs becomes clearer: they have been listening to Brooklyn's art rockers TV On For Radio. It makes some sense: TV On The Radio spent their youth listening to Eno and Bowie too."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Weakest track, why first single?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The first single, and oh, Escape Club – how wonderful you must be feeling at this moment! Ever since "Wild, Wild West" vanished from the charts in 1988 you've been waiting for a sign that you were something more than just another one hit wonder, so hearing U2 re-write the song must warm the cockles of your heart. And Elvis Costello must be smiling too, humming 'Pump It Up' under his breath as he dials his lawyers and wonders what sort of settlement to demand."
• - The Australian: "the current single pushes new buttons, with the Edge's heavy metal guitar riff and Bono's semi-rap leaving it sitting oddly, but rewardingly, somewhere between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Elvis Costello."
• "The future needs a big kiss, winds blows with a twist. Never seen a moon like this, can you see it too? Night is falling everywhere, rockets at the fun fair, Satan loves a bomb scare, but he won’t scare you. Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. You free me from the dark dream, candy floss ice cream. All our kids are screaming, but the ghosts aren’t real. Here’s where we gotta be: Love and community, laughter is eternity, if joy is real. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up. We’re into growing up, women of the future, hold the big revelations. I got a submarine, you got gasoline, I don’t want to talk about wars between nations. Not right now.
Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. Not right now. Bossy boots. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. Hey sexy boots, I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations. Sexy boots, yeah. Let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, now. God, I’m going down, I don’t wanna drown now, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, get on your boots, get on your boots, get on your boots, yeah hey hey")

7. "Stand Up Comedy"

• (- Q-source: "swaggering"; "wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks"; "home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas.""
• - Q-magazine: "rousing groove-based rocker with shades of Led Zep and Cream. Edge mentions that they're trying to keep Stand Up in a rough state and not overproduce it by putting it through Pro-Tools which cleans up imperfections"
• - RS-source: "Stand Up Comedy"; "another hard rock tune, powered by an unexpectedly slinky groove and a riff that lands between the Beatles' "Come Together" and Led Zep's "Heartbreaker." Edge recently hung out with Jimmy Page and Jack White for the upcoming documentary It Might Get Loud, and their penchant for blues-based rock rubbed off: "I was just fascinated with seeing how Jimmy played those riffs so simply, and with Jack as well," he says"
• - RS-article: "the words, which he keeps revising, have an almost hip-hop-like cadence: "Stand up, 'cause you can't sit down... Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady... Come on, you people, stand up for your love."; "We haven't quite gotten this right, and I'm the problem", Bono says of the tune, which is called "Stand Up Comedy" — at least for the moment. Tomorrow it will have new lyrics."; "the groove is slinkier than anything U2 have done in years."
• - Dave Fanning: "the nearest thing they’ve ever done to Led Zeppelin"
• - Independent: "grungy pop with strident drumming from Larry Mullen"
• - u2tour.de: "A song , that shows the influence of the sessions of The Edge, together with guitarist Jack White and Jimi Page for the film "It might get loud" had. "Stand Up Comedy" seems like straight from the 70s and could also fit on the soundtrack to "Across The Universe". A very rock, a catchy number, has all, a single needs. Here is finally The Edge "on fire".
• - Brunocam: "Another rocker, noisy and powerful. Bono pulls the voice, but it's the guitar that dominates. The fact that The Edge has participated in a documentary with Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) seems to have left marks, so the guitar evokes the Zeppelin of other times.To the original title - "Stand up," alluding to the humanist movement The Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty - was added "comedy" and listening to the song it is perceived why, what seems to be a moment of self-irony of Bono: " On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."
• Sunday Mail: "This proves the group are huge Led Zeppelin fans because Edge's guitar riff has a real Jimmy Page feel. In terms of being musically adventurous, it's not for the faint-hearted and definitely up there with "Exit" from The Joshua Tree in 1987."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A strutting 70s guitar finds the Edge channelling his inner Marc Bolan while that Brooklyn fractured dance of rock feels returns (and then becomes almost pure Madchester ecstasy nightclub). The "song" runs out a little earlier than the groove does but it doesn't seem fatal at all."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Huge, huge and not in a contrived way. Sounds like a war march and then flips it all upside down in the chorus. Bono in self deprecating mode, "I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both" he sings over the biggest edge riff ever. Pure anarchy."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Sorry, Red Hot Chili Peppers: just in case you were thinking of recording a version of The Stone Roses' career-ending "Love Spreads", be advised that U2 have beaten you to the punch. Bono says something about the Twin Towers and falling down and standing up, and then drops the line "Cross the road like a little old lady". You'd think that a band of U2's status could extend a deadline so that their lead singer could write some lyrics, surely?"
• - The Australian: "slightly funky"
• - Hot Press: "You also get the strong suspicion that Bono's talking about himself on 'Stand Up Comedy', another dirty white funk workout on which he declares: 'I can stand up for hope, faith, love/Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas/Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels'. Find me a Chris Martin line that self-deprecating and I'll buy you a pint."
• - Irish Independent: ""Stand Up Comedy" finds the frontman, who is given to wearing shoes with elevated soles, singing of "Napolean in high heels" before offering the killer line: "Be careful of small men with big ideas." The Edge's guitar playing is raw and dirty -- it's got Queens of the Stone Age written all over it. But the song fails to captivate. It just seems a little too contrived."
• - 'J2-D2': "probably my least favorite. It's a little U2-by-numbers, some of the lyrics are borderline, and it's not, like, subtle in any fashion. Edge's vocals feature a sweet echo effect, though, and his guitar has this nice slicey/piercing thing going on. I suspect it'll be one of those songs that gets a lot of live play on this tour and that in my dreams they would replace with, like, "Last Night on Earth." It's just Bono at his preachiest on the album—it evokes the same reaction I had to "Peace on Earth" and "Love and Peace or Else." The music is pretty good, though, still." 


• - Neil McCormick: "pop Zepplin-esque grooviness and shuffling beats ...in 'Stand Up Comedy' the diminutive rock star in stacked boots warns us "
• - "… beauty, dictator of the heart. I could stand up, for hope, faith, love, while I’m getting over certainty. Stop helping God across the road,
like a little old lady. Out from under your bed…";"On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas." “I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both”. “Stand up for your love!”. "Cross the road like a little old lady".)

8. "Fez -- Being Born"

• - Billboard: "more experimental fare".
• - Independent: "on first listen, easily the album's most adventurous and challenging track with ambient synthy hooks"
• - u2tour.de: "The first minute, only electronic set pieces to hear"; "a phone ringing, a sample from "Get On Your Boots" - until then, the actual song starts". "Edge's guitar classic, keyboards set, before Bono's voice only restless, then to fast beats, melodically intervenes"; "partial U2 sound here unconsumed and crude as the early 80s on their first singles"; "in the middle part sound synthetic and almost reminiscent of Depeche Mode"; "But the guitar is the direction, Bono with few vocals"
• - Brunocam: "The African experience - recorded in Fez, Morocco - is the subject, one of the best and most adventurous. "Six o 'clock on the autoroute / Burning rubber, burning chrome / Boy of Cadiz and ferry home / Atlantic sea cut glass / African Sun at last" Bono launches, through a compact sound architecture. It is perhaps the one that best summarizes the album, combining the spirit of direct rock and recent rib adventurous 90s."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Starts off like incidental music from the last "Prince of Persia" video game, then snaps into a prog rock section while Bono sings about fire. Dammit, we should have started a drinking game based on references to fire. Too late now, I suppose."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: " a brief flashback to the feel of 'The Unforgettable Fire'"
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This seems to be two songs hooked together, one a collection of odd sounds and shapes, the other a pulsing rock number which becomes something else again when the sonic oddness returns prior to a drifting away ending."
• - 'Walt Disney': "A nice break. A definite 'ZooTV' feel to it, sounds harrowing and claustrophobic on parts, but then spreads it wings like a sonic eagle. 2 songs in one, will take a few listens but ends like a funeral march, very gloomy."
• - Hot Press: "Things get even more experimental on 'Fez - Being Born', a wonderfully intriguing song of two halves that starts with disembodied voices, FM static and other ambient weirdness before giving way to Edge's trademark chiming guitar. Unconventional, but it works."
• - Irish Independent: "The album's most intriguing song is "FEZ -- Coming Home," which is a triumph of Eno's yen for experimentalism over U2's big sound. (In fact, Eno and Lanois share songwriting credits on several tracks.) It was one of the first songs recorded -- during sessions in the Moroccan city that gives the song its title -- and it's a hint about what this album could have sounded like if the band really had thrown caution to the wind. Its electro-ambient intro features the sound of birds singing and the bustle of Moroccan life (it was apparently recorded in the outdoor courtyard of an ancient riad) and Bono referencing the "let me in the sound" line from "Get On Your Boots," before it dissolves into a scattergun rock that shifts and slides into unexpected territory. The tempo changes are surprising and the song boasts a daring that the bulk of the other tracks, for all their merits, simply lack."
• - 'J2-D2': "is just fun; the second half sounds like "The Unforgettable Fire" on acid. They couldn't really perform it live, but it won't surprise me if a recording of the "Lemme in the sound" callback at the start opens the show or the encore. There are vocals in "Being Born," but they really blend into the music. It's kind of a tough track to pay attention to, if you know what I mean. I know that sounds weird, but it's a lot like the second half of Unforgettable Fire, in that the words are so deep in the mix that you don't start mindlessly singing along. There are backing vocals, but they're just echoing Bono's main vocal—vaguely reminiscent of the backing vocals on "Lemon," now that I think about it."
• - If it is identical with the working title track "Tripoli", we do know more:-
- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Bono talks about a song called "Tripoli", which is a guy on a motorcycle, a Moraccan french cop, whos going AWOL. He drives though France and Spain down to this village outside of Cadiz where you can actually see the fires of Africa burning"
• - RS-source: "this strikingly experimental song lurches between disparate styles, including near-operatic choral music, ZOOROPA-style electronics, and churning arena rock"
• RS-article: "ambitious possible album opener, which violently lurches between different sections"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - "Six o 'clock on the autoroute, Burning rubber, burning chrome. Boy of Cadiz and ferry home, Atlantic sea cut glass, African Sun at last")

9. "White As Snow"

• - NOT identical with the working title track "Winter", that won't be on the album, but will be a track on the 'Linear' film project. Source: Werners Wereld: Het nieuwe album van U2: gaat dat zien!. So the rumours, that the track was discarded for the album are true.
• - Independent: "a stark, stripped back and striking tune with imploring vocals"
• - u2tour.de: "This quiet and short track leads almost the end of the album"; "starts with an atmospheric electronic noise, through which the sound of a soulful acoustic guitar sets"; "it is expected formally supporting the voice of Johnny Cash, but Bono is using his voice here similarly intense". "The song is about forgiveness and how your own brother can become a stranger to you". "Musically reminiscent in parts of "Springhill Mining Disaster"
• Brunocam: "Atmospheric acoustic ballad, about a soldier lost in snow in Afghanistan. "Where I came from there were no hills at all / The land was flat, straight highway and the wider / My brother and i would drive for hours" recalls Bono, travel by the mind of a soldier lost in their memories, in an epic track."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A ballad not just inspired by but evoking wide spaces and open skies. There are low rumbles and darting sounds, brass even. Could this be U2 aiming for Bruce Springsteen in his solo tales-of-the-desert mode?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Another eerie moment, when the guitars seem to melt into orchestrations only to burst out again. Bono sounds creepy on places, come get me ghosts he sings (I think) over a Johnny Cash like apocalyptic ballad. Very depressing second half so far. Bono sounds like a character, like Macphisto on his death bed. Very surreal, gosh, this is cool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The absolute highlight without any doubt: a superb country lament. Bono makes a decent fist of it with Edge's down-tuned guitar the perfect accompaniment, but it would have been utterly perfect for the late Johnny Cash to wrap his weathered voice around (and would be one hell of a companion piece to the Cash/U2 collaboration "The Wanderer"). Bono's nature references – seeds, earth, snow, fruit – make perfect sense in this context. See, Bono, you can do it when you try."
• - The Australian: "adopts a more sombre tone, providing an acoustic contrast to the electrical storms on either side."
• - Hot Press: "U2 revisit Rattle And Hum 'Van Diemen's Land' with the sparse 'White As Snow', a track written for Jim Sheridan's Afghanistan war movie Brothers. Both lyrically and musically it trays into the same territory as Springsteen's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, with an extra twist of Leonard Cohen for good measure."
• - Irish Independent: "One of the slower tracks on the album, its intro recalls Sigur Ros while, later, a French horn highlights the evocative lyrics."
• - 'J2-D2': "is simply gorgeous. Like an old folk song, almost."

• - "Where I came from there were no hills at all, the land was flat. The highway, straight and wide. My brother and I would drive for hours
like we’d years, instead of… ". “Come get me ghosts”. “The water was icy, the road refuses strangers.” “They were hunting in the woods.”)

10. "Breathe"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "still a work in progress"; "Eno suggests, this is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on"
• - Q-magazine: "Arabic cello gives way to joyful chorus. Brian Eno says this is U2's best ever song. It's 8pm and Eno, Bono and Will.i.am are on Olympic Studio 1 writing a cello part for a song called Breathe that U2 - a touch ambitiously - are only beginning to record in ths final fortnight, never mind mix – the singer belts out a rollicking vocal featuring door-to-door salesman, a cockatoo and a chorus that begins "Step out into the street, sing your heart out""
• - RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article: "tweaks on his computer what he (The Edge) estimates to be the 80th incarnation"
• - Independent: "starts off with a trip-hop beat and cello playing before transforming into an all-out rocker"
• - u2tour.de: "booming drums open this song; "Bono on the fast"; "only the chorus is like a U2 classic"; "a dense and intense sound experience, which recalls carefully "Until The End Of The World"; "the song is known Beachclip No. 2."
• - Brunocam: "Eastern slow start with allusions to the level of the arrangements, but then there is a growing continuum of intensity, what is the favorite song of producer Brian Eno. It is indicative of a more complex disc - each song integrates various dynamics - that his two predecessors."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This is pushier at immediately, coming with a bit of attitude. Did Bono really just say he is "not somebody's cockatoo"? He definitely says "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease" and it's an apt description of this land of atmosphere and aggression."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Save the best til last. One of the most uplifting choruses I can remember. Breaks the recent gloom in a profound way. Just a testament to how cohesive this album feels, like a musical journey, ha! I'm serious though."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Frantically bowed strings hit harmonics over Mullen, Jr's thundering tom toms, before the rest of the band burst in at cross-rhythms and Bono starts up a scansion-free declamatory vocal like a third-rate Bob Dylan. Still, once it locks in the chorus it all makes sense. Either the album's picking up towards the end or I'm undergoing some sort of musical Stockholm Syndrome in which I fall in love with my captors as a coping mechanism. That said, Edge does pull out a three-note guitar solo that suggests he's never even seen a guitar before, and it's nice of Tears For Fears to let U2 use their keyboard sounds."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"; "contains all of the album's recurring themes - love, hope, seizing the day, celebrating life."
• - Hot Press: "Eno has decided that the penultimate track, 'Breathe', is 'the best U2 song ever'. While that assessment is perhaps a little over the top, the Beatles-esque track is a genuine standout with Bono evoking the spirit of St John Devine and unnamed ju-ju men, as a hyperactive cello and Larry's tom-toms fight it out in the background."
• - Irish Independent: "finds Bono in semi spoken-word mode, although the song doesn't do enough to draw the listener in."
• - 'J2-D2': "I felt about it a little like I felt about "Stand Up." It grows quickly, though, and it's one of my favorites on the album now. It takes the preachiness of "Stand Up" and turns it around into this awesome statement of joyful resolve. They had better play it live."
• - Neil McCormick: ""Every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street / With arms out, got a love you can't defeat" is the inspirational bridge in an epic, explosive rock anthem 'Breathe', that could be set in Gaza or at your own front door. Scattershot half-spoken verses fire images like news reports from the battleground of life ("16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up / And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus ... Doc says you're fine, or dying") til he is "running down the road like loose electricity", tension building in thundering drums and grungey two note guitar riff until it all lets loose in a soaring, anthemic chorus, as Bono tells us "I found grace inside a sound / I found grace, it's all that I found / And I can breathe". On 'Breathe', U2 locate the emotional and philosophical heart in an out and out ball busting U2 anthem (which Eno, apparently, asserts to be "the most U2 song" they have ever recorded)."
• - "…things I need you to know. Three, coming from a long line of traveling sales people on my mother's side, I wasn’t gunna buy just anyone’s cockatoo. So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home?
Would you? These days are better than that, these days are better than that"; “Walk out, into the street, sing your heart out”. "not somebody's cockatoo". "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease")

11. "Cedars Of Lebanon"

• (- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Daniel Lanois instigated closer that finds Bono imagining himself as a weary, lovelorn war correspondent "squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline". Ends with the possibly telling line "Choose your enemies carefully cos they will define you""
• - RS-source: ""On this album, you can feel what is going on in the world at the window, scratching at the windowpane," says Bono, who sings this atmospheric ballad from the point of view of a war correspondent"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "a reflective parting glass for album number 12, finishing on the line, "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you"
• - u2tour.de: "gloomy keyboards, backed by minimalist lead guitar playing the last song on the album"; "Bono speaks more than he sings and acts very dominant on this track. Drip-end beats and a strong bass line reminding of "If You Were That Velvet Dress." Bono sings from the perspective of a war reporter in Lebanon and the recurring line "return the call to home" sounds like a distant, electronic noise"
• - Brunocam: "Bono wears the role of a war correspondent for atmospheric evocation not far from songs like "With or without you." The tone is confessional, the reflective verses end: "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you / Make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you / They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friend."
• - Sunday Mail: "Bono almost speaks his vocal over a more hymnal, hypnotic backing which leads to a beautiful, almost choral, hook. Some atmospheric Edge guitar creeps in and builds the mood. This song is so good you don't want it to end. A fitting finale to a classic U2 album."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Lyrically and musically strongly reminiscent of a film noir narration (Bono as Walter Neff? Why not?), the central character is a man cut off from affection and life in general. Some really interesting harmonies - Eno at work again - and a closing set of lines worth pondering for implications. "Choose your enemies well for they will define you ... they are going to last with you longer than your friends"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Back to the darkness with glimpses of light. Like the end of the horizon is just another beginning. So many profound lines, where did this Bono go?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Yep, they close on a ballad – and it's about world suffering. "Squeeze a complicated life into a simple headline," Bono sighs, and we all agree. "Yes, Bono," we weep, as one. "Oh media, when will you learn?" Then we go to a different perspective, that of a displaced person in a warzone. "A soldier brings oranges," Bono sings, "he got out of a tank." And with that clanging line the magic is dispelled, like the unexpected slam of a toilet door. It's a nice idea, and the tune's a good one, but honestly: some sort of lyric editor would have been wise."
• - The Australian: "adopty a more sombre tone"
• - Hot Press: "If ever there was a song for the times, it's the closing 'Cedars of Lebanon', a beautiful half-spoken ballad in which Bono narrates from the point of view of a weary war correspondent - the thing is that you just know that there's a lot of the U2 frontman in there too. 'Choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you/Make them interesting 'cos in some ways they will mind you/They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends/Gonna last with you longer than your friends', he pronounces, before the song does the musical equivalent of The Sopranos' last scene and comes to an abrupt halt, ending the record on a suitably low key and yet indisputably high note."
• - Irish Independent: "Closer "Cedars of Lebanon" is the most overtly political song, and a real grower. Like many of its siblings on this album, its moody atmospheric texture recalls Achtung Baby-era U2. It's a downbeat song on which to conclude an album brimming with life and hope."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Wake Up Dead Man," because of the tempo and because it ends so suddenly, on a somber note—and I guess because some of Bono's lyrics approach "Wake Up"'s quality, not in content, but in precision. It doesn't seem like one they'll break out for the tour. It doesn't have a solo like "Love Is Blindness". (There's a bridge, I guess, but not a raging solo like that.) It's a quiet, simple song—very restrained."
• - Neil McCormick: "the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda"
• - "Woke up in my clothes, in a dirty heap. Spent the night trying to make a deadline. Squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline. I have your face in an old Polaroid, tidying the children’s clothes & toys, you’re smiling back at me. I took the photo from the…";“the shitty world sometimes produces a rose”. “the best of us are masters of compression.” "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you, make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you, they're not there in the beginning but when your story ends, gonna last with you longer than your friend." “Return the call to home”)

Tracklist

1. "No Line on the Horizon" (4.12)
2. "Magnificent" (5.24)
3. "Moment of Surrender" (7.24)
4. "Unknown Caller" (6.03)
5. "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (4.14)
6. "Get On Your Boots" (3.25)
7. "Stand Up Comedy" (3.50)
8. "Fez - Being Born" (= 'Tripoli'?) (5.17)
9. "White As Snow" (4.41)
10. "Breathe" (5.00)
11. "Cedars of Lebanon" (4.13)

bonus-tracks
On the contrary to earlier rumours, obviously there will be bonus tracks for the album. German i-tunes does list now for the big package not only "Anton Corbijn's exclusive film" and the "Digital Booklet" - but also two other, additional tracks as bonus:
- "No Line On The Horizon 2"
- "Get On Your Boots (Punk Version)"

On 'Linear' will appear the track "Winter"
• (- Q-source: "featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno"
• - Q-magazine: "6 minute ballad. Echoes of Simon & Garfunkel in this poignant, acoustic string laden ballad about a soldier in the snow of Afghanistan. Will appear in the new film 'Brothers' starring Tobey Maguire about the emotional fallout of the war. Edge on backing vocals with Bono for Winter""
• -RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article:"lovely discarded ballad"

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

I also wonder, since Winter is mentioned to be on Linear, if Winter morphed into an instrumental.

good idea. Do we have any news or even speculations on 'Linear' and "Winter"?

 

[BVS]

Ok, these posts are far too long and repetitive, I haven't gathered where the new information is posted...

So can someone tell me where the third song that has the lyric "let me in the sound" is found? I think the Neil interview mentioned three songs where that lyric shows up, we know of two from the single and clips, what is the third?

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Ok, these posts are far too long and repetitive, I haven't gathered where the new information is posted...
So can someone tell me where the third song that has the lyric "let me in the sound" is found? I think the Neil interview mentioned three songs where that lyric shows up, we know of two from the single and clips, what is the third?

I don't know either, because Neil doesn't name it. So this answer, I fear, can only be given by somebody, who has heard the album. Anybody out there on this?

 

[BVS]

I don't know either, because Neil doesn't name it. So this answer, I fear, can only be given by somebody, who has heard the album. Anybody out there on this?

Thanks Zoo...

You've done a pretty good job with this thread...

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

UPDATE (02/17/2009 - new, shorter version)

An analytical summary of NLOTH from the journalist's view, with the tunes in a casual running-order:

1. First the Q-source from November
2. The Q-magazine snippets
3. The RS-review
4. The RS-article
5. The detailed Alan Cross statements
7. New descriptions by billboard.com
8. Dave Fanning's reviews
9. Daniel Lanois in an interview with Alan Cross
10. Independent article
11. The review on "www.u2tour.de" (in rough translation from German in English), that unfortunately doesn't tell us much more about the album's themes & lyrics, but at least about the sounds. The reviewer wants to confirm: "Fez" is NOT "Tripoli"! – which might be true or not. I don't believe the source on u2tour.de, instead I do think "Fez" is identical with "Tripoli" (the 'Cadiz', 'landscape', 'journey'-theme is so striking and it would be strange, if U2 had written two 'experimental' tunes with the same topic. So I left the descriptions for "Tripoli" in ...)
12. A reviewer's translation from Brunocam
13. Sunday Mail
14. The Sydney Morning Herald
15. Review by 'Walt Disney'
16. Review by 'Andrew P Street', who dislikes the album
17. The Australian
18. Melbourne Herald Sun
19. Hot Press
20. Irish Independent
21. Review by 'J2-2D'
22. Review by Neil McCormick

... enjoy and thanx for keeping this 'analytical' thread alive!


NO LINE ON THE HORIZON: TRACK BY TRACK SUMMARY


1. "No Line On The Horizon"

• (- Q-source: "further unfinished"; "two versions were extant: the first is another TUF-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punky Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace", "Bono very excited about the second version"
• (- Q-magazine: "began life as a slow paced Eno-esque ambient treatment, before being dramatically reworked in the Olympic Sessions into an abrasive punk-rock tune akin to Vertigo, with its "No! Line!" chorus chant"
• - RS-source: "the title track's relentless groove began as a group improvisation. "It's very raw and very to the point," says the Edge. "It's like rock & roll 2009""
• -RS-article: "churning, tribal groove and a deadpan chorus"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - Independent: "the opening title track kicks off with a crunchy, distorted guitar riff from the Edge"
• - tour.de: "booming guitar riffs", "slamming bass", "Bono's voice cries, hurts, and only slowly gets more melodic"; "the catchy chorus is a surprise, carried vocally by The Edge"; "in the middle the song is slower", "classic U2 song structures, before it gains more speed again"; "at the end guitar parts that remind of Lady With The Spinning Head"; "a dense atmospheric song"; "U2's music in a changed world of sounds"
• - Brunocam: "Characteristic of the U2 song, the epic sense in growing, guitars sometimes quiet, sometimes strident, with Bono singing "i know a girl who's like the sea / I watch her everyday changing for me / Oh yeah." Originally had a very environmental treatment, through the production of Brian Eno, but in the end it became an abrasive rock song."
• - Sunday Mail: "This opens with a loud sonic drone before Bono sings: "I knew a girl who's like the sea/I watch her changing every day for me."
Then Larry's drums kick in and the song lifts off. It could be their best live stadium opener since Zoo Station."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Buzzy guitars and offkilter Enoesque noises vie for attention while Bono strains for effect as he reflects both the tension and the intensity of the song. The chorus (not a big one; more a devolving of the verse) retains the tension, but puts it in a gentler setting. Bono seems to be singing to, or about, a girl, not for the last time on the album, but it's not easy to decipher."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Best opener since "Zoo". The chorus is really a hushed version of the verse until the last 30 seconds when the song erupts into a punk rock death chant. Sonically brilliant, like an Eno junkyard full of space age trinkets. Fast, yet slow, yet fast. Ending sounds like of all bands, pixies, yes, pixies, madness."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "A Bo Diddley beat heralds the beginning of Brian Eno's new album, featuring U2. In fact, the cluttered production and layers of keys sound not dissimilar to what Eno did with James circa Whiplash. And then they staple some ethnic percussion to the thing for no good reason."
• - The Australian: "The bombast, the clever use of dynamics and the rhythm section's funk-fused rock groove are strikingly familiar". "Best example of these elements' collective power, with Bono milking a huge anthemic chorus. It has stadium written all over it."
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "The fantastic title track has a wall of distorted guitar that recalls a previous envelope-pushing moment, "The Fly"."
• - Hot Press: "The collection's only other ball-busting, out and out rocker is the title-track, which lives up to the 'Buzzcocks meets Bow Wow Wow' billing it's been given by its author, who mizes metaphysics with mischief-making as he recounts: 'She said, 'Time is irrelevant, it's not linear/Then she put her tongue in my ear'."
• - Irish Independent: "It starts off strongly with the title track, a barnstorming stadium rock tune that could have come from the songwriting stable of Kings of Leon."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a raucous, exciting start to the proceedings—much better than the alternate version—and the only disappointment is that it's wild enough that you think maybe you're getting another Zooropa. You're not. That's not a bad thing, but I would love another Zooropa."
• - Neil McCormick: "grittily urgent yet ethereal title track")

2. "Magnificent"

• (- Q-source: "classic U2-isms"; "echoes TUF's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep"
• - Q-magazine: "slow building anthem with the ambience of TUF and laced with the wide eyed wonder of U2's earlier albums. Edge here is at his most dynamic. Features the line:"Only love can reset your mind""
• - RS-source: ""Only love can leave such a mark," Bono roars on what sounds like an instant U2 anthem. Will.i.am has already done what Bono calls "the most extraordinary" remix of the tune"
• - RS-article: "familiarly chiming U2 anthem"
• - Independent: "dancey electro flourishes introduce an atmospheric track with moody leanings"
• - u2tour.de: "begins with loud drums, there are loops and riffs, chasing each other, before Edge's classical guitar sound sets in"; "Bono starts singing his part with the title of the song"; "a very melodical song, perhaps one of the best on the whole album"; "but also one that would have fit on previous U2 albums"; "also new layers of sound and would perhaps still feel fine on 'Achtung Baby'"; "a strong coda finishes the song, which we already know as Beachclip No. 4."
• - Brunocam: "One of the songs that promises immediate membership. "Only love can reset your mind" Bono sings, among the environments that lead to the U2 album "Unforgettable Fire", in combination with the most direct route rock of recent albums. There are electronic effects, orchestral arrangements that evoke the period "The Joshua Tree" and a balance of typical song of love - "I was born to sing for you / I did not have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you my voice back."
• - Sunday Mail: "A future single choice which more than lives up to its bold title. The Edge's driving guitar gives the song a New Year's Day-style mood.
Bono is in great form when he sings: "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up." He's dead right because, just two numbers in, the album already has a classic feel."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "More of those odd sounds behind treated guitars and synthesisers and the song opens in two or would now be called "classic U2", the familiar 80s quick marching rhythm and the Edge's exploratory guitar lines. The most traditional sounding song on the album has Bono declaring that "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice" before confessing that "only love can leave such a mark"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "More familiar territory here with some brilliant "oh oh" that sound like a choir of Bonos and Edges, very lemon in parts but easier to swallow. Huge lush ending that will bring stadiums of peole to tears. Will be big big single. Anthem etc."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Kind interpretation: this harkens back to Zooropa, especially in the electro introduction. Less-kind version: hey, it's REM's 'Orange Crush', as rewritten by short-lived 90s synth darlings Republica! It's here that Bono's lyrics come to the fore and you realise that he's followed Bruce Springsteen into the late-period creative cul-de-sac where he's incapable of speaking in anything other than clichés and meaningless waffle. "Only love can leave such a mark," he declares, leaving the listener to answer the question, "what the bloody hell is he on about?" for themselves."
• - The Australian: "vaguely "Where The Streets Have No Name"-sounding"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "sounds like a single (once it has had a radio edit) with that signature Where the Streets Have No Name chugging guitar and drum momentum."
• - Hot Press: "'From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ... only love, only love can leave such a mark', he proclaims on the aptly-titled 'Magnificent', an eclectic mix - inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's The Magnificat, no less - of mournful Roy Orbison guitar, Killers-style synth stabs (this musical magpie lark works both ways, Brandon!) and anthemic flourishes which recall the likes of 'New Year's Day' and 'Pride'."
• - Irish Independent: "one of the album's stand-outs, the aptly titled "Magnificent." This already sounds like a classic U2 song that combines disparate eras of their career in a hugely appealing way -- War-meets-Zooropa, if you will. Even the most avowed U2-hater is likely to struggle to come up with reasons to dislike the Edge's irresistible guitars and muscular rhythm section. It's one of two songs featuring the keyboards of will.i.am and while the Black Eyed Peas' main man is hardly a distinct enough keys player to make you sit up and take notice, Eno's typically smart production takes all the elements and concocts the sort of epic five-minuter that's become his stock-in-trade. Let's just say one of his more recent "clients," Coldplay's Chris Martin, is likely to weep with envy when he hears it."
• - 'J2-D2': "is like Joshua Tree 2.0: a big, beautiful, classic Edge riff that makes you think of horses racing across a western plain, but with a few dancey touches. If it's not the biggest single off the album, I'll be surprised."

• - Neil McCormick: "the quite wonderful 'Magnificent', in which the U2/Eno/Lanois combo conjure up an instantly recognisable U2 classic in a love song with the flag waving pop drive of 'New Year's Day'.")

3. "Moment Of Surrender"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "a strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take"; "sounds like a great U2 moment in the spirit of "One""
• - Q-magazine: "georgiously melodic 7 minute song that already has the air of the U2 classic about it, with lyrics about dark stars and existential crises:"I did not notice the passers-by/And they did not notice me". Recorded in one take. This album's "One""
• - RS-source: "this seven-minute-long track is one of the album's most ambitious, merging a TJT-style gospel feel with a hypnotically loping bass line and a syncopated beat""
• -RS-article: "astonishing seven-minute"; "was played just one time — the band improvised the version on the album from thin air"
- Billboard: "more experimental fare"; "an electro-leaning track with an Eastern-inspired scale in the chorus, making it one of the weirder U2 tracks in decades."
• - Independent: "this particular moment of surrender sees a slowing down of the tempo and some delicate, bluesy guitar playing from the Edge"
• - u2tour.de: "among the slowest on the CD"; "dripping beats with an obvious influence from the Fez sessions open the track"; "strings and keyboards take over, before Bono's voice surprisingly shaky begins". "parts of the song almost remind of the Passengers' experiments"; "until Bono and Edge come to melodical chorus with Falsetto voice support"; "a gloomy mood"; "a much-layered sound carpet"; "Edge has a very expressive, but slow guitar solo in this song"
• - Brunocam: "Promises to be a classic in many concerts in the line of what happens with ballads like "One". Melodic song of seven minutes, starts slow, with lyrics about "dark stars" and with Bono's voice a little hoarse evoking existential crises - "I myself tied with wire / To let the horses free / Playing with the fire until the fire played with me. " The pace and syncope, the blues guitar of The Edge line of low and delicate environment, creating a hypnotic effect general."
• Sunday Mail: "Bono reckons this is one of the best songs U2 have written - and with their back catalogue, that's saying something. It opens with a guitar sound reminiscent of Where The Streets Have No Name and features a great Edge solo. In one of his most personal lyrics, Bono says: "I've been in every black hole/At the altar of the dark star/My body's now a begging bowl/That's begging to get back." A stunning song Springsteen or Dylan would be proud of."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A moodier track with irregular hand percussion (or a loop, or both) picking away at the edges of a bed of synthesisers and violin. The emotional tone is late '80s U2; the musical palette, with hints of electronica, is more early '90s. Before those richly layered Eno/Lanois-signature backing vocals arrived late in the piece Bono goes from enigmatic: "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free/playing with fire till the fire plays with me" (I think) to matters closer to the heart: "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Softer moment after the hugeness of the first two songs. Not as sonic but has a weird vibe. Will require further listening but sounds promising."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "After the Vangelis-via-Eno synth intro, Bono delivers a husky, passionate vocal for the album's first ballad, including what an early contender for Dumbest Line of 2009: "Playing with the fire, 'til the fire plays with you." The Edge pulls out a rudimentary slide guitar solo and then there's an oh-ah-oh wordless singalong that should be a hit at the half dozen shows where they try this one out before never playing it again."
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois leave their fingerprints all over the atmospheric Moment of Surrender - cathedral organs and a heavy bass groove spoiled only by Bono mentioning an ATM."
• - Hot Press: "a gospel-flavoured seven-minute epic that rides in on an orchestral wave, and includes such evocative cinematic couplets as: 'I was speeding on the subway/Through the stations of the cross/Every eye looking every other way/Counting down 'til the pain would stop'. If U2 were trying to conjure the same spiritual vibe as Marvin Gaye's 'Abraham, Martin, John' they've succeeded. 'Moment Of Surrender' is a big, sweeping track in the vein of 'With Or Without You' that's certain to become a U2 classic."
• - Irish Independent: "Songs like "Moment of Salvation" -- which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome -- is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul," "God" and "fire."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Miss Sarajevo", It doesn't ever feel like it's a seven-and-a-half-minute song. I'm not sure how, because it's not complicated at all, but it never gets boring."
• - Neil McCormick: "a pulsing, dreamily gorgeous 7 minute weave of synths, silvery guitars, sub-bass, handclaps, Arabic strings and soulful ululating vocals, in which the narrator experiences a spiritual epiphany at the very prosaic setting of an ATM machine. It is a beautiful piece that provides the album's beating heart and shows how far U2 can drift from their stereotype as a stadium rock band into unknown territory while still making something that touches the universal.")

4. "Unknown Caller"

• (- Q-source: "stately"; "was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn"
• (- Q-magazine: "opens with the sound of birdsong recorded live in Fez. A middle eastern flavoured percussion loop drives this tale about a man"at the end of his rope" whose phone bizarrely begins texting him random instructions: "Reboot yourself","Password, enter here","You're free to go".
Dallas Schoo describes the song as "one of Edge's major solos in his life - you wont hear better than that on any other song""
• - RS-source: "this midtempo track could have fit on ATYCLB. "The idea is that the narrator is in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him," says the Edge"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "more intricate guitar fretwork that builds into a mid-tempo rocker featuring an organ and one of the album's lushest productions"
• - u2tour.de: "Bird, electrical noise and keyboards guide "Unknown Caller" on." "The song has exciting breaks in the sound structure, somewhere it always comes back to the classic U2 sound, before it comes consistently interrupted"; "almost the entire track sung in two voices". "In the chorus sings Bono "Restart and reboot yourself" and brings one of the key points, the lyrics may be the concept of the album: "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning"" "Edge with another strong guitar solo and Bono singing "Escape yourself and gravity." "This song is known as Beachclip No. 1"
• - Brunocam: "It is one of the songs where Bono is in a fictional role, someone in an altered state that is faced with a phone that speech. On the sound could belong to "All That You Can not Leave Behind," the half-time pace, silky, with light body and The Edge to leave its mark in an intricate guitar break."
• Sunday Mail: "An epic with double-tracked vocals, wailing Edge guitar and pounding Adam bass. It's a musical feast with so much going on it's initially tough to take it all in. In the chant-style chorus Bono sings: "Hear me/Cease to speak/That I may speak/Shush now." If nothing else, that's got to be another first for U2 - a pop song with "Shush" in the lyric."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Some really interesting ambient sounds in a late, late night setting more concerned with atmosphere than asserting itself. It's 3.33am "in a place of no consequence or company" and he's "speed dialling with no signal at all". The lyrics seem more impressionistic, disconnected and with a touch of David Bowie in the chanting underneath. And is that French horns at the end? Not usually heard on a U2 album."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Bono at his existensial best. Best lyrics since the fly and a guitar break that had every hair on my body stand on edge. You can really hear Eno at work here, sounds like it was written in space. Glorious madness, and an ending that sounds like Bono as a wolf, yelping his way to the end of the world. Drool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Eno has a good old fiddle until The Edge remembers what he did for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" – which will make a sweet segue during the tour. There's some genuinely great tasteful fingerpicking here, but it's about this point you'll start thinking "Hold on, aren't U2 best known for their stick-in-your-head choruses? What happened? And how did the last song go?""
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach, although the ... song fails to deliver on its early promise."
• - Hot Press: "The first reminder that Fez, in Morocco, was the birthplace for much of the album - and that Brian Eno was among the midwives - is provided by the birdsong and looped Arab percussion at the beginning of 'Unknown Caller', which also finds Bono giving his falsetto another impressive work out."
• - 'J2-D2': "eminds me of "The Three Sunrises," for some reason—maybe because the first vocal is Edge doing a high-pitched "Sunshine, sunshine..." And then it goes into him and Larry and I think Bono (it's at least two of them, but I think all three) going "Ohohohohohahoh..." a couple of times, followed by some bright UF-style guitar and percussion. And then Bono's main vocal comes right in. It is the weirdest song on the album, and the lyrical offenses ("Force quit! Move to trash!") stand out so much that it's a little hard to like it at first. The music is too interesting to ignore, though—like a proggy take on a classic U2 sound—so you get over it. I'm reminded of that Bono quote about Michael Jackson from (I think) the Bill Flanagan book: how Jackson's voice is the most beautiful sound in the world if you just ignore the words he's singing. And other than those glaring bits, the rest of the lyrics are quiet poignant."
• - Neil McCormick: "the fantastically odd 'Unknown Caller' hits a vein of emotional truth, when the spaced out singer is cast adrift on the soundbites of computer and communications networks ('Password, you enter here, right now / You know your name so punch it in') yet seems to find himself talking to the inner voice of God ("Escape yourself, and gravity / Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak"). Words and music dovetail in surprising ways that send the senses spinning.")

5. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

• (- Q-source: "straight up pop"; "the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at"
• - Q-magazine: "upbeat pop track with distinct echoes of 60's era Phil Spector, particularly the moment when its chorus disappears into a wash of reverb. Centres around the line: "I'll go crazy If I dont go crazy tonight""
• - RS-source: "It's kind of like this album's 'Beautiful Day' — it has that kind of joy to it," Bono says. With the refrain "I know I'll go crazy/If I don't go crazy tonight," it's the band's most unabashed pop tune since "Sweetest Thing"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Billboard: "classic U2 rocker"
• - Independent: "chiming guitar intro, a rousing Bono falsetto and the lyric, "Every generation has a chance to change the world"
• - u2tour.de: "one of the shorter songs of the album. The sound is taken from Larry's Drums, Edge comes with catchy guitar parts"; "quiet song sections before Larry comes back powerfully forward". "In the central part of it sometimes reminds a little of the atmosphere in "Sometimes You Can t make it on your own, while the end of the song sounds a lot like "Ultra Violet"-sounds"; "The text of the song is political, Bono sings: "There`s a part of me that wants to riot" and later "Every generation get's a chance to change the world". "I'll go crazy would also be a possible second or third single"
• - Brunocam: "As the title suggests, is one of the most daytime, and markedly festival pop along the lines of classics like "Beautiful Day", with some echoes, reverberations, refrain effective (I'll go crazy if i do not go crazy tonight " ), guitars and falsetto loose from Bono to proclaim "every generation gets a chance to change the world."
• Sunday Mail: "Thumping drums, pulsing bass and piano get this potential single off the launch pad. Musically, it has all the trademarks of a U2 classic with another soaring Bono vocal and great "woo-oo" hook on the chorus.")
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Mixed marriages don't always work, but should, seems to be the theme. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life/I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight." This is a straight out pop song with reverb guitars and Bono in high croon. It's also a U2 track they could do in their sleep, but no less attractive for that. The question is will it last as long as some of the others?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Sounds a bit weak next to UC but a glorious I song. Reminds me of something from the brill building days in the golden age of pop. Great lyrics, will be a huge single. Happiest song since BD"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "There are two ways that a song with this title should go. The first and most obvious is a Bon Jovi/Poison good time blues-rock party anthem, with a kick-ass guitar solo (preferably heralded with Jon Bon Jovi/Sebastian Bach screeching "Guitar!") and maybe some sweet harmonica in the coda. The other, less obvious but equally suitable way would be as a Bryan Adams/Aerosmith power ballad, which would also have a kick-ass guitar solo but would be less about partying and more about how crazy the love of a woman can drive a man, which would be a thinly-veiled sex metaphor. "I'm not perfect baby, as anyone can see," Adams/Steven Tyler would sing just before the chorus, "And though you drive me crazy, I'm still as crazy as a man can be." See? The song writes itself. The third option, which is the one that U2 went for, is to do an unmemorable mid-paced song with lyrics like "She's a rainbow, she loves the peaceful life" and a guitar riff lifted from Altered Images' 'I Could Be Happy'. My versions are so, so much better."
• - The Australian: "Edge-heavy"
• - u2tour.de (user "u2tomorrow"): "A very reliable source told me, that beach clip No. 5 is on the album – as "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight". But they changed the version a lot, so I was not able to recognize it at first."
• - Hot Press: "Listeners looking for autobiographical insight, meanwhile, should proceed immediately to the Will.i.am and string section-assisted 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight', a real grower which features such revelatory lines as 'There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet/And there's a part of you that wants me to riot'."
• - Irish Independent: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," for instance, is a massively uplifting number that's bound to be a live favourite when U2 take the show on the road this summer. There's humour too, as Bono, tongue firmly in cheek, notes: "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear." Never a truer word spoken, Bono."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a sleeper. It's very poppy, but doesn't catch you right away like, say, "Vertigo" or "Beautiful Day" did. I find myself singing it in my head, though. Edge's guitar sounds so clear."
• - Neil McCormick: "Oasis on steroids singalong pop")

6. "Get On Your Boots"

... we do know it ...

7. "Stand Up Comedy"

• (- Q-source: "swaggering"; "wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks"; "home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas.""
• - Q-magazine: "rousing groove-based rocker with shades of Led Zep and Cream. Edge mentions that they're trying to keep Stand Up in a rough state and not overproduce it by putting it through Pro-Tools which cleans up imperfections"
• - RS-source: "Stand Up Comedy"; "another hard rock tune, powered by an unexpectedly slinky groove and a riff that lands between the Beatles' "Come Together" and Led Zep's "Heartbreaker." Edge recently hung out with Jimmy Page and Jack White for the upcoming documentary It Might Get Loud, and their penchant for blues-based rock rubbed off: "I was just fascinated with seeing how Jimmy played those riffs so simply, and with Jack as well," he says"
• - RS-article: "the words, which he keeps revising, have an almost hip-hop-like cadence: "Stand up, 'cause you can't sit down... Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady... Come on, you people, stand up for your love."; "We haven't quite gotten this right, and I'm the problem", Bono says of the tune, which is called "Stand Up Comedy" — at least for the moment. Tomorrow it will have new lyrics."; "the groove is slinkier than anything U2 have done in years."
• - Dave Fanning: "the nearest thing they’ve ever done to Led Zeppelin"
• - Independent: "grungy pop with strident drumming from Larry Mullen"
• - u2tour.de: "A song , that shows the influence of the sessions of The Edge, together with guitarist Jack White and Jimi Page for the film "It might get loud" had. "Stand Up Comedy" seems like straight from the 70s and could also fit on the soundtrack to "Across The Universe". A very rock, a catchy number, has all, a single needs. Here is finally The Edge "on fire".
• - Brunocam: "Another rocker, noisy and powerful. Bono pulls the voice, but it's the guitar that dominates. The fact that The Edge has participated in a documentary with Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) seems to have left marks, so the guitar evokes the Zeppelin of other times.To the original title - "Stand up," alluding to the humanist movement The Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty - was added "comedy" and listening to the song it is perceived why, what seems to be a moment of self-irony of Bono: " On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."
• Sunday Mail: "This proves the group are huge Led Zeppelin fans because Edge's guitar riff has a real Jimmy Page feel. In terms of being musically adventurous, it's not for the faint-hearted and definitely up there with "Exit" from The Joshua Tree in 1987."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A strutting 70s guitar finds the Edge channelling his inner Marc Bolan while that Brooklyn fractured dance of rock feels returns (and then becomes almost pure Madchester ecstasy nightclub). The "song" runs out a little earlier than the groove does but it doesn't seem fatal at all."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Huge, huge and not in a contrived way. Sounds like a war march and then flips it all upside down in the chorus. Bono in self deprecating mode, "I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both" he sings over the biggest edge riff ever. Pure anarchy."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Sorry, Red Hot Chili Peppers: just in case you were thinking of recording a version of The Stone Roses' career-ending "Love Spreads", be advised that U2 have beaten you to the punch. Bono says something about the Twin Towers and falling down and standing up, and then drops the line "Cross the road like a little old lady". You'd think that a band of U2's status could extend a deadline so that their lead singer could write some lyrics, surely?"
• - The Australian: "slightly funky"
• - Hot Press: "You also get the strong suspicion that Bono's talking about himself on 'Stand Up Comedy', another dirty white funk workout on which he declares: 'I can stand up for hope, faith, love/Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas/Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels'. Find me a Chris Martin line that self-deprecating and I'll buy you a pint."
• - Irish Independent: ""Stand Up Comedy" finds the frontman, who is given to wearing shoes with elevated soles, singing of "Napolean in high heels" before offering the killer line: "Be careful of small men with big ideas." The Edge's guitar playing is raw and dirty -- it's got Queens of the Stone Age written all over it. But the song fails to captivate. It just seems a little too contrived."
• - 'J2-D2': "probably my least favorite. It's a little U2-by-numbers, some of the lyrics are borderline, and it's not, like, subtle in any fashion. Edge's vocals feature a sweet echo effect, though, and his guitar has this nice slicey/piercing thing going on. I suspect it'll be one of those songs that gets a lot of live play on this tour and that in my dreams they would replace with, like, "Last Night on Earth." It's just Bono at his preachiest on the album—it evokes the same reaction I had to "Peace on Earth" and "Love and Peace or Else." The music is pretty good, though, still." 


• - Neil McCormick: "pop Zepplin-esque grooviness and shuffling beats ...in 'Stand Up Comedy' the diminutive rock star in stacked boots warns us".)

8. "Fez -- Being Born"

• - Billboard: "more experimental fare".
• - Independent: "on first listen, easily the album's most adventurous and challenging track with ambient synthy hooks"
• - u2tour.de: "The first minute, only electronic set pieces to hear"; "a phone ringing, a sample from "Get On Your Boots" - until then, the actual song starts". "Edge's guitar classic, keyboards set, before Bono's voice only restless, then to fast beats, melodically intervenes"; "partial U2 sound here unconsumed and crude as the early 80s on their first singles"; "in the middle part sound synthetic and almost reminiscent of Depeche Mode"; "But the guitar is the direction, Bono with few vocals"
• - Brunocam: "The African experience - recorded in Fez, Morocco - is the subject, one of the best and most adventurous. "Six o 'clock on the autoroute / Burning rubber, burning chrome / Boy of Cadiz and ferry home / Atlantic sea cut glass / African Sun at last" Bono launches, through a compact sound architecture. It is perhaps the one that best summarizes the album, combining the spirit of direct rock and recent rib adventurous 90s."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Starts off like incidental music from the last "Prince of Persia" video game, then snaps into a prog rock section while Bono sings about fire. Dammit, we should have started a drinking game based on references to fire. Too late now, I suppose."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: " a brief flashback to the feel of 'The Unforgettable Fire'"
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This seems to be two songs hooked together, one a collection of odd sounds and shapes, the other a pulsing rock number which becomes something else again when the sonic oddness returns prior to a drifting away ending."
• - 'Walt Disney': "A nice break. A definite 'ZooTV' feel to it, sounds harrowing and claustrophobic on parts, but then spreads it wings like a sonic eagle. 2 songs in one, will take a few listens but ends like a funeral march, very gloomy."
• - Hot Press: "Things get even more experimental on 'Fez - Being Born', a wonderfully intriguing song of two halves that starts with disembodied voices, FM static and other ambient weirdness before giving way to Edge's trademark chiming guitar. Unconventional, but it works."
• - Irish Independent: "The album's most intriguing song is "FEZ -- Coming Home," which is a triumph of Eno's yen for experimentalism over U2's big sound. (In fact, Eno and Lanois share songwriting credits on several tracks.) It was one of the first songs recorded -- during sessions in the Moroccan city that gives the song its title -- and it's a hint about what this album could have sounded like if the band really had thrown caution to the wind. Its electro-ambient intro features the sound of birds singing and the bustle of Moroccan life (it was apparently recorded in the outdoor courtyard of an ancient riad) and Bono referencing the "let me in the sound" line from "Get On Your Boots," before it dissolves into a scattergun rock that shifts and slides into unexpected territory. The tempo changes are surprising and the song boasts a daring that the bulk of the other tracks, for all their merits, simply lack."
• - 'J2-D2': "is just fun; the second half sounds like "The Unforgettable Fire" on acid. They couldn't really perform it live, but it won't surprise me if a recording of the "Lemme in the sound" callback at the start opens the show or the encore. There are vocals in "Being Born," but they really blend into the music. It's kind of a tough track to pay attention to, if you know what I mean. I know that sounds weird, but it's a lot like the second half of Unforgettable Fire, in that the words are so deep in the mix that you don't start mindlessly singing along. There are backing vocals, but they're just echoing Bono's main vocal—vaguely reminiscent of the backing vocals on "Lemon," now that I think about it."

• - If it is identical with the working title track "Tripoli", we do know more:-
- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Bono talks about a song called "Tripoli", which is a guy on a motorcycle, a Moraccan french cop, whos going AWOL. He drives though France and Spain down to this village outside of Cadiz where you can actually see the fires of Africa burning"
• - RS-source: "this strikingly experimental song lurches between disparate styles, including near-operatic choral music, ZOOROPA-style electronics, and churning arena rock"
• RS-article: "ambitious possible album opener, which violently lurches between different sections"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out.")

9. "White As Snow"

• - NOT identical with the working title track "Winter", that won't be on the album, but will be a track on the 'Linear' film project. Source: Werners Wereld: Het nieuwe album van U2: gaat dat zien!. So the rumours, that the track was discarded for the album are true.
• - Independent: "a stark, stripped back and striking tune with imploring vocals"
• - u2tour.de: "This quiet and short track leads almost the end of the album"; "starts with an atmospheric electronic noise, through which the sound of a soulful acoustic guitar sets"; "it is expected formally supporting the voice of Johnny Cash, but Bono is using his voice here similarly intense". "The song is about forgiveness and how your own brother can become a stranger to you". "Musically reminiscent in parts of "Springhill Mining Disaster"
• Brunocam: "Atmospheric acoustic ballad, about a soldier lost in snow in Afghanistan. "Where I came from there were no hills at all / The land was flat, straight highway and the wider / My brother and i would drive for hours" recalls Bono, travel by the mind of a soldier lost in their memories, in an epic track."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A ballad not just inspired by but evoking wide spaces and open skies. There are low rumbles and darting sounds, brass even. Could this be U2 aiming for Bruce Springsteen in his solo tales-of-the-desert mode?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Another eerie moment, when the guitars seem to melt into orchestrations only to burst out again. Bono sounds creepy on places, come get me ghosts he sings (I think) over a Johnny Cash like apocalyptic ballad. Very depressing second half so far. Bono sounds like a character, like Macphisto on his death bed. Very surreal, gosh, this is cool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The absolute highlight without any doubt: a superb country lament. Bono makes a decent fist of it with Edge's down-tuned guitar the perfect accompaniment, but it would have been utterly perfect for the late Johnny Cash to wrap his weathered voice around (and would be one hell of a companion piece to the Cash/U2 collaboration "The Wanderer"). Bono's nature references – seeds, earth, snow, fruit – make perfect sense in this context. See, Bono, you can do it when you try."
• - The Australian: "adopts a more sombre tone, providing an acoustic contrast to the electrical storms on either side."
• - Hot Press: "U2 revisit Rattle And Hum 'Van Diemen's Land' with the sparse 'White As Snow', a track written for Jim Sheridan's Afghanistan war movie Brothers. Both lyrically and musically it trays into the same territory as Springsteen's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, with an extra twist of Leonard Cohen for good measure."
• - Irish Independent: "One of the slower tracks on the album, its intro recalls Sigur Ros while, later, a French horn highlights the evocative lyrics."
• - 'J2-D2': "is simply gorgeous. Like an old folk song, almost.")

10. "Breathe"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "still a work in progress"; "Eno suggests, this is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on"
• - Q-magazine: "Arabic cello gives way to joyful chorus. Brian Eno says this is U2's best ever song. It's 8pm and Eno, Bono and Will.i.am are on Olympic Studio 1 writing a cello part for a song called Breathe that U2 - a touch ambitiously - are only beginning to record in ths final fortnight, never mind mix – the singer belts out a rollicking vocal featuring door-to-door salesman, a cockatoo and a chorus that begins "Step out into the street, sing your heart out""
• - RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article: "tweaks on his computer what he (The Edge) estimates to be the 80th incarnation"
• - Independent: "starts off with a trip-hop beat and cello playing before transforming into an all-out rocker"
• - u2tour.de: "booming drums open this song; "Bono on the fast"; "only the chorus is like a U2 classic"; "a dense and intense sound experience, which recalls carefully "Until The End Of The World"; "the song is known Beachclip No. 2."
• - Brunocam: "Eastern slow start with allusions to the level of the arrangements, but then there is a growing continuum of intensity, what is the favorite song of producer Brian Eno. It is indicative of a more complex disc - each song integrates various dynamics - that his two predecessors."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This is pushier at immediately, coming with a bit of attitude. Did Bono really just say he is "not somebody's cockatoo"? He definitely says "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease" and it's an apt description of this land of atmosphere and aggression."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Save the best til last. One of the most uplifting choruses I can remember. Breaks the recent gloom in a profound way. Just a testament to how cohesive this album feels, like a musical journey, ha! I'm serious though."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Frantically bowed strings hit harmonics over Mullen, Jr's thundering tom toms, before the rest of the band burst in at cross-rhythms and Bono starts up a scansion-free declamatory vocal like a third-rate Bob Dylan. Still, once it locks in the chorus it all makes sense. Either the album's picking up towards the end or I'm undergoing some sort of musical Stockholm Syndrome in which I fall in love with my captors as a coping mechanism. That said, Edge does pull out a three-note guitar solo that suggests he's never even seen a guitar before, and it's nice of Tears For Fears to let U2 use their keyboard sounds."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"; "contains all of the album's recurring themes - love, hope, seizing the day, celebrating life."
• - Hot Press: "Eno has decided that the penultimate track, 'Breathe', is 'the best U2 song ever'. While that assessment is perhaps a little over the top, the Beatles-esque track is a genuine standout with Bono evoking the spirit of St John Devine and unnamed ju-ju men, as a hyperactive cello and Larry's tom-toms fight it out in the background."
• - Irish Independent: "finds Bono in semi spoken-word mode, although the song doesn't do enough to draw the listener in."
• - 'J2-D2': "I felt about it a little like I felt about "Stand Up." It grows quickly, though, and it's one of my favorites on the album now. It takes the preachiness of "Stand Up" and turns it around into this awesome statement of joyful resolve. They had better play it live."
• - Neil McCormick: ""Every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street / With arms out, got a love you can't defeat" is the inspirational bridge in an epic, explosive rock anthem 'Breathe', that could be set in Gaza or at your own front door. Scattershot half-spoken verses fire images like news reports from the battleground of life ("16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up / And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus ... Doc says you're fine, or dying") til he is "running down the road like loose electricity", tension building in thundering drums and grungey two note guitar riff until it all lets loose in a soaring, anthemic chorus, as Bono tells us "I found grace inside a sound / I found grace, it's all that I found / And I can breathe". On 'Breathe', U2 locate the emotional and philosophical heart in an out and out ball busting U2 anthem (which Eno, apparently, asserts to be "the most U2 song" they have ever recorded).")

11. "Cedars Of Lebanon"

• (- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Daniel Lanois instigated closer that finds Bono imagining himself as a weary, lovelorn war correspondent "squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline". Ends with the possibly telling line "Choose your enemies carefully cos they will define you""
• - RS-source: ""On this album, you can feel what is going on in the world at the window, scratching at the windowpane," says Bono, who sings this atmospheric ballad from the point of view of a war correspondent"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "a reflective parting glass for album number 12, finishing on the line, "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you"
• - u2tour.de: "gloomy keyboards, backed by minimalist lead guitar playing the last song on the album"; "Bono speaks more than he sings and acts very dominant on this track. Drip-end beats and a strong bass line reminding of "If You Were That Velvet Dress." Bono sings from the perspective of a war reporter in Lebanon and the recurring line "return the call to home" sounds like a distant, electronic noise"
• - Brunocam: "Bono wears the role of a war correspondent for atmospheric evocation not far from songs like "With or without you." The tone is confessional, the reflective verses end: "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you / Make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you / They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friend."
• - Sunday Mail: "Bono almost speaks his vocal over a more hymnal, hypnotic backing which leads to a beautiful, almost choral, hook. Some atmospheric Edge guitar creeps in and builds the mood. This song is so good you don't want it to end. A fitting finale to a classic U2 album."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Lyrically and musically strongly reminiscent of a film noir narration (Bono as Walter Neff? Why not?), the central character is a man cut off from affection and life in general. Some really interesting harmonies - Eno at work again - and a closing set of lines worth pondering for implications. "Choose your enemies well for they will define you ... they are going to last with you longer than your friends"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Back to the darkness with glimpses of light. Like the end of the horizon is just another beginning. So many profound lines, where did this Bono go?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Yep, they close on a ballad – and it's about world suffering. "Squeeze a complicated life into a simple headline," Bono sighs, and we all agree. "Yes, Bono," we weep, as one. "Oh media, when will you learn?" Then we go to a different perspective, that of a displaced person in a warzone. "A soldier brings oranges," Bono sings, "he got out of a tank." And with that clanging line the magic is dispelled, like the unexpected slam of a toilet door. It's a nice idea, and the tune's a good one, but honestly: some sort of lyric editor would have been wise."
• - The Australian: "adopty a more sombre tone"
• - Hot Press: "If ever there was a song for the times, it's the closing 'Cedars of Lebanon', a beautiful half-spoken ballad in which Bono narrates from the point of view of a weary war correspondent - the thing is that you just know that there's a lot of the U2 frontman in there too. 'Choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you/Make them interesting 'cos in some ways they will mind you/They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends/Gonna last with you longer than your friends', he pronounces, before the song does the musical equivalent of The Sopranos' last scene and comes to an abrupt halt, ending the record on a suitably low key and yet indisputably high note."
• - Irish Independent: "Closer "Cedars of Lebanon" is the most overtly political song, and a real grower. Like many of its siblings on this album, its moody atmospheric texture recalls Achtung Baby-era U2. It's a downbeat song on which to conclude an album brimming with life and hope."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Wake Up Dead Man," because of the tempo and because it ends so suddenly, on a somber note—and I guess because some of Bono's lyrics approach "Wake Up"'s quality, not in content, but in precision. It doesn't seem like one they'll break out for the tour. It doesn't have a solo like "Love Is Blindness". (There's a bridge, I guess, but not a raging solo like that.) It's a quiet, simple song—very restrained."
• - Neil McCormick: "the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda")


Tracklist

1. "No Line on the Horizon" (4.12)
2. "Magnificent" (5.24)
3. "Moment of Surrender" (7.24)
4. "Unknown Caller" (6.03)
5. "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (4.14)
6. "Get On Your Boots" (3.25)
7. "Stand Up Comedy" (3.50)
8. "Fez - Being Born" (= 'Tripoli'?) (5.17)
9. "White As Snow" (4.41)
10. "Breathe" (5.00)
11. "Cedars of Lebanon" (4.13)

bonus-tracks
On the contrary to earlier rumours, obviously there will be bonus tracks for the album. German i-tunes does list now for the big package not only "Anton Corbijn's exclusive film" and the "Digital Booklet" - but also two other, additional tracks as bonus:
- "No Line On The Horizon 2"
- "Get On Your Boots (Punk Version)"

On 'Linear' will appear the track "Winter"
• (- Q-source: "featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno"
• - Q-magazine: "6 minute ballad. Echoes of Simon & Garfunkel in this poignant, acoustic string laden ballad about a soldier in the snow of Afghanistan. Will appear in the new film 'Brothers' starring Tobey Maguire about the emotional fallout of the war. Edge on backing vocals with Bono for Winter""
• -RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article:"lovely discarded ballad"

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Thanks Zoo...

You've done a pretty good job with this thread...

You're welcome. Your quote, that there are three songs with the "let me in the sound" reference, seems very important to me. Kind of a frame, a picture of "diving in the sound", "being part of the sound", "an album, that is all about sound" – slogans, that come to my mind, now.
So it would be really nice to know, which, apart from GOYB and "Fez-Being Born", is the third tune with this line on the album ...

 

[Popmart Shopper]

I kind of think Fez might be Tripoli,but does anyone think that Being Born used to be Every Breaking Wave.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

I kind of think Fez might be Tripoli,but does anyone think that Being Born used to be Every Breaking Wave.

Wow, nice idea, too. Don't think, we have had this theory here yet. Thanx for sharing ...

 

[redhill]

UPDATE (02/16/2009, with a new, interesting fan report by J2-D2)

An analytical summary of NLOTH from the journalist's view, with the tunes in a casual running-order:

1. First the Q-source from November visiting the Olympic Studios and a private session with Bono ...

2. The Q-magazine snippets, that might capture nearly the same period than the first source and might have the same roots as controbution for Q's special ...

3. The RS-review of the tracks from early December (with the wrong date, 22nd January, but claiming to be part of the 7th January issue!!!)

4. The current RS-article (01/07/2009), that was obviosuly written on the same occasion as the RS-review. This article confirms our impression here in the forum, that the time, Q and RS visited U2, the work was far from finished. One consequence: At least in parts the known album tracks are 'only' working titles; to create a tracklist for NLOTH out of this, is pure speculation. "We're at the point where half the album is done, and half the album is in a state where anything can happen — and probably will" – says the Edge and thus, this is all we know here on the board regarding the different tunes...

5. The detailed (and officially by the mangement allowed?) Alan Cross statements and impressions on the new single "Get On Your Boots", who's yet to be the first known to us journalist, who obviously has listened to the track (Twitter / alancross).

6. The 2nd detailed review of the single by skott100 (I got on "Boots" this morning! (Single review))

7. Including the official tracklist, confirmed by u2.com and new descriptions by billboard.com

8. Dave Fanning's reviews

9. Daniel Lanois in an interview with Alan Cross

10. "Independent article", that refers to the album's playback in Dublin on St. Stephen's Greeen (01/29/09)

11. The review on "www.u2tour.de" (in rough translation from German in English), that unfortunately doesn't tell us much more about the album's themes & lyrics, but at least about the sounds. The reviewer wants to confirm: "Fez" is NOT "Tripoli"! – which might be true or not. I don't believe the source on u2tour.de, instead I do think "Fez" is identical with "Tripoli" (the 'Cadiz', 'landscape', 'journey'-theme is so striking and it would be strange, if U2 had written two 'experimental' tunes with the same topic. So I left the descriptions for "Tripoli" in ...)

12. A reviewer's translation from Brunocam, that gives us more insight in the lyrics

13. Sunday Mail

14. The Sydney Morning Herald, with some more insight on sounds

15. Review by interferencer 'Walt Disney'

16. Review by 'Andrew P Street', who dislikes the album and, yes, bashes ...

17. The Australian

18. Melbourne Herald Sun

19. Hot Press

20. Irish Independent

21. Review by 'J2-2D'

22. Lyrics, we already (think to) know

... enjoy and thanx for keeping this 'analytical' thread alive!


NO LINE ON THE HORIZON: TRACK BY TRACK SUMMARY


1. "No Line On The Horizon"

• (- Q-source: "further unfinished"; "two versions were extant: the first is another TUF-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punky Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace", "Bono very excited about the second version"
• (- Q-magazine: "began life as a slow paced Eno-esque ambient treatment, before being dramatically reworked in the Olympic Sessions into an abrasive punk-rock tune akin to Vertigo, with its "No! Line!" chorus chant"
• - RS-source: "the title track's relentless groove began as a group improvisation. "It's very raw and very to the point," says the Edge. "It's like rock & roll 2009""
• -RS-article: "churning, tribal groove and a deadpan chorus"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - Independent: "the opening title track kicks off with a crunchy, distorted guitar riff from the Edge"
• - tour.de: "booming guitar riffs", "slamming bass", "Bono's voice cries, hurts, and only slowly gets more melodic"; "the catchy chorus is a surprise, carried vocally by The Edge"; "in the middle the song is slower", "classic U2 song structures, before it gains more speed again"; "at the end guitar parts that remind of Lady With The Spinning Head"; "a dense atmospheric song"; "U2's music in a changed world of sounds"
• - Brunocam: "Characteristic of the U2 song, the epic sense in growing, guitars sometimes quiet, sometimes strident, with Bono singing "i know a girl who's like the sea / I watch her everyday changing for me / Oh yeah." Originally had a very environmental treatment, through the production of Brian Eno, but in the end it became an abrasive rock song."
• - Sunday Mail: "This opens with a loud sonic drone before Bono sings: "I knew a girl who's like the sea/I watch her changing every day for me."
Then Larry's drums kick in and the song lifts off. It could be their best live stadium opener since Zoo Station."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Buzzy guitars and offkilter Enoesque noises vie for attention while Bono strains for effect as he reflects both the tension and the intensity of the song. The chorus (not a big one; more a devolving of the verse) retains the tension, but puts it in a gentler setting. Bono seems to be singing to, or about, a girl, not for the last time on the album, but it's not easy to decipher."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Best opener since "Zoo". The chorus is really a hushed version of the verse until the last 30 seconds when the song erupts into a punk rock death chant. Sonically brilliant, like an Eno junkyard full of space age trinkets. Fast, yet slow, yet fast. Ending sounds like of all bands, pixies, yes, pixies, madness."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "A Bo Diddley beat heralds the beginning of Brian Eno's new album, featuring U2. In fact, the cluttered production and layers of keys sound not dissimilar to what Eno did with James circa Whiplash. And then they staple some ethnic percussion to the thing for no good reason."
• - The Australian: "The bombast, the clever use of dynamics and the rhythm section's funk-fused rock groove are strikingly familiar". "Best example of these elements' collective power, with Bono milking a huge anthemic chorus. It has stadium written all over it."
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "The fantastic title track has a wall of distorted guitar that recalls a previous envelope-pushing moment, "The Fly"."
• - Hot Press: "The collection's only other ball-busting, out and out rocker is the title-track, which lives up to the 'Buzzcocks meets Bow Wow Wow' billing it's been given by its author, who mizes metaphysics with mischief-making as he recounts: 'She said, 'Time is irrelevant, it's not linear/Then she put her tongue in my ear'."
• - Irish Independent: "It starts off strongly with the title track, a barnstorming stadium rock tune that could have come from the songwriting stable of Kings of Leon."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a raucous, exciting start to the proceedings—much better than the alternate version—and the only disappointment is that it's wild enough that you think maybe you're getting another Zooropa. You're not. That's not a bad thing, but I would love another Zooropa."
• - "I know a girl who's like the sea, I watch her changing every day for me. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. One day she's still, the next she swells,
you can hear the universe in her sea shells. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line. I know a girl with a hole in her heart,
she said infinity is a great place to start. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, Oh no you know it’s gonna be, hold on. The lady said me that I could ???? lover, I wanna beat it (o be) and see ????. No, no line on the horizon, no line... The songs in my head is now on my mind. I put you on pause, I'm trying to rewind and replay. Every night I have the same dream, I'm hatching some plot, scheming some scheme. Oh yeah, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. I'm traffic cop, rue de marais. The sirens are wailing but it's me that wants to get away, Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. No, no line on the horizon, no line ...")


2. "Magnificent"

• (- Q-source: "classic U2-isms"; "echoes TUF's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep"
• - Q-magazine: "slow building anthem with the ambience of TUF and laced with the wide eyed wonder of U2's earlier albums. Edge here is at his most dynamic. Features the line:"Only love can reset your mind""
• - RS-source: ""Only love can leave such a mark," Bono roars on what sounds like an instant U2 anthem. Will.i.am has already done what Bono calls "the most extraordinary" remix of the tune"
• - RS-article: "familiarly chiming U2 anthem"
• - Independent: "dancey electro flourishes introduce an atmospheric track with moody leanings"
• - u2tour.de: "begins with loud drums, there are loops and riffs, chasing each other, before Edge's classical guitar sound sets in"; "Bono starts singing his part with the title of the song"; "a very melodical song, perhaps one of the best on the whole album"; "but also one that would have fit on previous U2 albums"; "also new layers of sound and would perhaps still feel fine on 'Achtung Baby'"; "a strong coda finishes the song, which we already know as Beachclip No. 4."
• - Brunocam: "One of the songs that promises immediate membership. "Only love can reset your mind" Bono sings, among the environments that lead to the U2 album "Unforgettable Fire", in combination with the most direct route rock of recent albums. There are electronic effects, orchestral arrangements that evoke the period "The Joshua Tree" and a balance of typical song of love - "I was born to sing for you / I did not have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you my voice back."
• - Sunday Mail: "A future single choice which more than lives up to its bold title. The Edge's driving guitar gives the song a New Year's Day-style mood.
Bono is in great form when he sings: "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up." He's dead right because, just two numbers in, the album already has a classic feel."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "More of those odd sounds behind treated guitars and synthesisers and the song opens in two or would now be called "classic U2", the familiar 80s quick marching rhythm and the Edge's exploratory guitar lines. The most traditional sounding song on the album has Bono declaring that "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice" before confessing that "only love can leave such a mark"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "More familiar territory here with some brilliant "oh oh" that sound like a choir of Bonos and Edges, very lemon in parts but easier to swallow. Huge lush ending that will bring stadiums of peole to tears. Will be big big single. Anthem etc."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Kind interpretation: this harkens back to Zooropa, especially in the electro introduction. Less-kind version: hey, it's REM's 'Orange Crush', as rewritten by short-lived 90s synth darlings Republica! It's here that Bono's lyrics come to the fore and you realise that he's followed Bruce Springsteen into the late-period creative cul-de-sac where he's incapable of speaking in anything other than clichés and meaningless waffle. "Only love can leave such a mark," he declares, leaving the listener to answer the question, "what the bloody hell is he on about?" for themselves."
• - The Australian: "vaguely "Where The Streets Have No Name"-sounding"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "sounds like a single (once it has had a radio edit) with that signature Where the Streets Have No Name chugging guitar and drum momentum."
• - Hot Press: "'From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ... only love, only love can leave such a mark', he proclaims on the aptly-titled 'Magnificent', an eclectic mix - inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's The Magnificat, no less - of mournful Roy Orbison guitar, Killers-style synth stabs (this musical magpie lark works both ways, Brandon!) and anthemic flourishes which recall the likes of 'New Year's Day' and 'Pride'."
• - Irish Independent: "one of the album's stand-outs, the aptly titled "Magnificent." This already sounds like a classic U2 song that combines disparate eras of their career in a hugely appealing way -- War-meets-Zooropa, if you will. Even the most avowed U2-hater is likely to struggle to come up with reasons to dislike the Edge's irresistible guitars and muscular rhythm section. It's one of two songs featuring the keyboards of will.i.am and while the Black Eyed Peas' main man is hardly a distinct enough keys player to make you sit up and take notice, Eno's typically smart production takes all the elements and concocts the sort of epic five-minuter that's become his stock-in-trade. Let's just say one of his more recent "clients," Coldplay's Chris Martin, is likely to weep with envy when he hears it."
• - 'J2-D2': "is like Joshua Tree 2.0: a big, beautiful, classic Edge riff that makes you think of horses racing across a western plain, but with a few dancey touches. If it's not the biggest single off the album, I'll be surprised."


• - "Magnificent (oh, oh), magnificent"; "I was born to sing for you, I didn't have a choice, but to lift you up. And sing whatever song you wanted me to, I give you my voice back." “Only love can leave such a scar”. “Only love can make such a mark”. “Only love can reset your mind”. “You and I will make a fire!”)

3. "Moment Of Surrender"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "a strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take"; "sounds like a great U2 moment in the spirit of "One""
• - Q-magazine: "georgiously melodic 7 minute song that already has the air of the U2 classic about it, with lyrics about dark stars and existential crises:"I did not notice the passers-by/And they did not notice me". Recorded in one take. This album's "One""
• - RS-source: "this seven-minute-long track is one of the album's most ambitious, merging a TJT-style gospel feel with a hypnotically loping bass line and a syncopated beat""
• -RS-article: "astonishing seven-minute"; "was played just one time — the band improvised the version on the album from thin air"
- Billboard: "more experimental fare"; "an electro-leaning track with an Eastern-inspired scale in the chorus, making it one of the weirder U2 tracks in decades."
• - Independent: "this particular moment of surrender sees a slowing down of the tempo and some delicate, bluesy guitar playing from the Edge"
• - u2tour.de: "among the slowest on the CD"; "dripping beats with an obvious influence from the Fez sessions open the track"; "strings and keyboards take over, before Bono's voice surprisingly shaky begins". "parts of the song almost remind of the Passengers' experiments"; "until Bono and Edge come to melodical chorus with Falsetto voice support"; "a gloomy mood"; "a much-layered sound carpet"; "Edge has a very expressive, but slow guitar solo in this song"
• - Brunocam: "Promises to be a classic in many concerts in the line of what happens with ballads like "One". Melodic song of seven minutes, starts slow, with lyrics about "dark stars" and with Bono's voice a little hoarse evoking existential crises - "I myself tied with wire / To let the horses free / Playing with the fire until the fire played with me. " The pace and syncope, the blues guitar of The Edge line of low and delicate environment, creating a hypnotic effect general."
• Sunday Mail: "Bono reckons this is one of the best songs U2 have written - and with their back catalogue, that's saying something. It opens with a guitar sound reminiscent of Where The Streets Have No Name and features a great Edge solo. In one of his most personal lyrics, Bono says: "I've been in every black hole/At the altar of the dark star/My body's now a begging bowl/That's begging to get back." A stunning song Springsteen or Dylan would be proud of."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A moodier track with irregular hand percussion (or a loop, or both) picking away at the edges of a bed of synthesisers and violin. The emotional tone is late '80s U2; the musical palette, with hints of electronica, is more early '90s. Before those richly layered Eno/Lanois-signature backing vocals arrived late in the piece Bono goes from enigmatic: "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free/playing with fire till the fire plays with me" (I think) to matters closer to the heart: "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Softer moment after the hugeness of the first two songs. Not as sonic but has a weird vibe. Will require further listening but sounds promising."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "After the Vangelis-via-Eno synth intro, Bono delivers a husky, passionate vocal for the album's first ballad, including what an early contender for Dumbest Line of 2009: "Playing with the fire, 'til the fire plays with you." The Edge pulls out a rudimentary slide guitar solo and then there's an oh-ah-oh wordless singalong that should be a hit at the half dozen shows where they try this one out before never playing it again."
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: "Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois leave their fingerprints all over the atmospheric Moment of Surrender - cathedral organs and a heavy bass groove spoiled only by Bono mentioning an ATM."
• - Hot Press: "a gospel-flavoured seven-minute epic that rides in on an orchestral wave, and includes such evocative cinematic couplets as: 'I was speeding on the subway/Through the stations of the cross/Every eye looking every other way/Counting down 'til the pain would stop'. If U2 were trying to conjure the same spiritual vibe as Marvin Gaye's 'Abraham, Martin, John' they've succeeded. 'Moment Of Surrender' is a big, sweeping track in the vein of 'With Or Without You' that's certain to become a U2 classic."
• - Irish Independent: "Songs like "Moment of Salvation" -- which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome -- is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul," "God" and "fire."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Miss Sarajevo", It doesn't ever feel like it's a seven-and-a-half-minute song. I'm not sure how, because it's not complicated at all, but it never gets boring."
• - “We’ll set ourselves on fire.” “I did not notice them, they did not notice me”. “ATM machine”. "I tied myself with wire to let the horses run free, playing with fire till the fire plays with me". "it's not if I believe in love but if love believes in me". "I've been in every black hole, at the altar of the dark star, my body's now a begging bowl, that's begging to get back.")

4. "Unknown Caller"

• (- Q-source: "stately"; "was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn"
• (- Q-magazine: "opens with the sound of birdsong recorded live in Fez. A middle eastern flavoured percussion loop drives this tale about a man"at the end of his rope" whose phone bizarrely begins texting him random instructions: "Reboot yourself","Password, enter here","You're free to go".
Dallas Schoo describes the song as "one of Edge's major solos in his life - you wont hear better than that on any other song""
• - RS-source: "this midtempo track could have fit on ATYCLB. "The idea is that the narrator is in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him," says the Edge"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "more intricate guitar fretwork that builds into a mid-tempo rocker featuring an organ and one of the album's lushest productions"
• - u2tour.de: "Bird, electrical noise and keyboards guide "Unknown Caller" on." "The song has exciting breaks in the sound structure, somewhere it always comes back to the classic U2 sound, before it comes consistently interrupted"; "almost the entire track sung in two voices". "In the chorus sings Bono "Restart and reboot yourself" and brings one of the key points, the lyrics may be the concept of the album: "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning"" "Edge with another strong guitar solo and Bono singing "Escape yourself and gravity." "This song is known as Beachclip No. 1"
• - Brunocam: "It is one of the songs where Bono is in a fictional role, someone in an altered state that is faced with a phone that speech. On the sound could belong to "All That You Can not Leave Behind," the half-time pace, silky, with light body and The Edge to leave its mark in an intricate guitar break."
• Sunday Mail: "An epic with double-tracked vocals, wailing Edge guitar and pounding Adam bass. It's a musical feast with so much going on it's initially tough to take it all in. In the chant-style chorus Bono sings: "Hear me/Cease to speak/That I may speak/Shush now." If nothing else, that's got to be another first for U2 - a pop song with "Shush" in the lyric."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Some really interesting ambient sounds in a late, late night setting more concerned with atmosphere than asserting itself. It's 3.33am "in a place of no consequence or company" and he's "speed dialling with no signal at all". The lyrics seem more impressionistic, disconnected and with a touch of David Bowie in the chanting underneath. And is that French horns at the end? Not usually heard on a U2 album."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Bono at his existensial best. Best lyrics since the fly and a guitar break that had every hair on my body stand on edge. You can really hear Eno at work here, sounds like it was written in space. Glorious madness, and an ending that sounds like Bono as a wolf, yelping his way to the end of the world. Drool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Eno has a good old fiddle until The Edge remembers what he did for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" – which will make a sweet segue during the tour. There's some genuinely great tasteful fingerpicking here, but it's about this point you'll start thinking "Hold on, aren't U2 best known for their stick-in-your-head choruses? What happened? And how did the last song go?""
• - The Australian: "church organ underpins a more soulful approach, although the ... song fails to deliver on its early promise."
• - Hot Press: "The first reminder that Fez, in Morocco, was the birthplace for much of the album - and that Brian Eno was among the midwives - is provided by the birdsong and looped Arab percussion at the beginning of 'Unknown Caller', which also finds Bono giving his falsetto another impressive work out."
• - 'J2-D2': "eminds me of "The Three Sunrises," for some reason—maybe because the first vocal is Edge doing a high-pitched "Sunshine, sunshine..." And then it goes into him and Larry and I think Bono (it's at least two of them, but I think all three) going "Ohohohohohahoh..." a couple of times, followed by some bright UF-style guitar and percussion. And then Bono's main vocal comes right in. It is the weirdest song on the album, and the lyrical offenses ("Force quit! Move to trash!") stand out so much that it's a little hard to like it at first. The music is too interesting to ignore, though—like a proggy take on a classic U2 sound—so you get over it. I'm reminded of that Bono quote about Michael Jackson from (I think) the Bill Flanagan book: how Jackson's voice is the most beautiful sound in the world if you just ignore the words he's singing. And other than those glaring bits, the rest of the lyrics are quiet poignant."
• - Sunshine, sunshine. Sunshine, sunshine"; "Restart and reboot yourself". “you know your password, key it in.”
“3:33 in the morning and the numbers dropped off the clockface”. "in a place of no consequence or company". “Escape yourself and gravity.” "speed dialling with no signal at all". "Hear me, cease to speak, that I may speak, shush now.". "I was lost between the midnight and the dawning")

5. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

• (- Q-source: "straight up pop"; "the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at"
• - Q-magazine: "upbeat pop track with distinct echoes of 60's era Phil Spector, particularly the moment when its chorus disappears into a wash of reverb. Centres around the line: "I'll go crazy If I dont go crazy tonight""
• - RS-source: "It's kind of like this album's 'Beautiful Day' — it has that kind of joy to it," Bono says. With the refrain "I know I'll go crazy/If I don't go crazy tonight," it's the band's most unabashed pop tune since "Sweetest Thing"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Billboard: "classic U2 rocker"
• - Independent: "chiming guitar intro, a rousing Bono falsetto and the lyric, "Every generation has a chance to change the world"
• - u2tour.de: "one of the shorter songs of the album. The sound is taken from Larry's Drums, Edge comes with catchy guitar parts"; "quiet song sections before Larry comes back powerfully forward". "In the central part of it sometimes reminds a little of the atmosphere in "Sometimes You Can t make it on your own, while the end of the song sounds a lot like "Ultra Violet"-sounds"; "The text of the song is political, Bono sings: "There`s a part of me that wants to riot" and later "Every generation get's a chance to change the world". "I'll go crazy would also be a possible second or third single"
• - Brunocam: "As the title suggests, is one of the most daytime, and markedly festival pop along the lines of classics like "Beautiful Day", with some echoes, reverberations, refrain effective (I'll go crazy if i do not go crazy tonight " ), guitars and falsetto loose from Bono to proclaim "every generation gets a chance to change the world."
• Sunday Mail: "Thumping drums, pulsing bass and piano get this potential single off the launch pad. Musically, it has all the trademarks of a U2 classic with another soaring Bono vocal and great "woo-oo" hook on the chorus.")
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Mixed marriages don't always work, but should, seems to be the theme. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life/I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight." This is a straight out pop song with reverb guitars and Bono in high croon. It's also a U2 track they could do in their sleep, but no less attractive for that. The question is will it last as long as some of the others?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Sounds a bit weak next to UC but a glorious I song. Reminds me of something from the brill building days in the golden age of pop. Great lyrics, will be a huge single. Happiest song since BD"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "There are two ways that a song with this title should go. The first and most obvious is a Bon Jovi/Poison good time blues-rock party anthem, with a kick-ass guitar solo (preferably heralded with Jon Bon Jovi/Sebastian Bach screeching "Guitar!") and maybe some sweet harmonica in the coda. The other, less obvious but equally suitable way would be as a Bryan Adams/Aerosmith power ballad, which would also have a kick-ass guitar solo but would be less about partying and more about how crazy the love of a woman can drive a man, which would be a thinly-veiled sex metaphor. "I'm not perfect baby, as anyone can see," Adams/Steven Tyler would sing just before the chorus, "And though you drive me crazy, I'm still as crazy as a man can be." See? The song writes itself. The third option, which is the one that U2 went for, is to do an unmemorable mid-paced song with lyrics like "She's a rainbow, she loves the peaceful life" and a guitar riff lifted from Altered Images' 'I Could Be Happy'. My versions are so, so much better."
• - The Australian: "Edge-heavy"
• - u2tour.de (user "u2tomorrow"): "A very reliable source told me, that beach clip No. 5 is on the album – as "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight". But they changed the version a lot, so I was not able to recognize it at first."
• - Hot Press: "Listeners looking for autobiographical insight, meanwhile, should proceed immediately to the Will.i.am and string section-assisted 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight', a real grower which features such revelatory lines as 'There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet/And there's a part of you that wants me to riot'."
• - Irish Independent: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," for instance, is a massively uplifting number that's bound to be a live favourite when U2 take the show on the road this summer. There's humour too, as Bono, tongue firmly in cheek, notes: "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear." Never a truer word spoken, Bono."
• - 'J2-D2': "is a sleeper. It's very poppy, but doesn't catch you right away like, say, "Vertigo" or "Beautiful Day" did. I find myself singing it in my head, though. Edge's guitar sounds so clear."
• - "Just a little hit, every beauty needs to go out with an idiot. How can you stand next to the truth, and not see it? Oh, a change of heart comes to.
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain, as you start out the climb"; "Every generation has a chance to change the world". "There`s a part of me that wants to riot". “Baby, baby, baby”. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life, I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight.")

6. "Get On Your Boots"

• (- Q-source: "among other instantly striking tracks"; "a heaving electro-rocker that may mark the destination point the band had been seeking on POP"
• - Q-magazine: "formerly titled "Sexy Boots", this demented electro grunge employs a proto-rockn'roll riff, but propelled into the future, with a hip-hop twist in the middle. Features Bono in flirtacious, self depreciating mode: "I dont wanna talk about wars between nations""
• -RS-source: "the likely first single, this blazing, fuzzed-out rocker picks up where "Vertigo" left off. "It started just with me playing and Larry drumming," the Edge recalls. "And we took it from there""
• -RS-article: "with a furry monster of a fuzz-guitar riff"; "power chords that, per Bono, echo the Damned's "New Rose"; verses that share a rhythm with "Subterranean Homesick Blues"; and a chorus that mixes whimsy and ardor: "Get on your boots/Sexy boots/You don't know how beautiful you are." "A hundred fifty beats per minute, three minutes, the fastest song we've ever played," Bono says, playing the tune at deafening volume in an airy studio lounge after dinner. "We're not really ready for adult-contemporary just yet."
• -Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog I: "expected to be heard on the radio within ten days, maybe sooner"; "a lot of electronic sounds"; "Larry plays some kind of electronic drums, too"; Bono rhymes "submarine" with "gasoline"";
"the original title was "Sexy Boots, then it was "Get Your Boots On", now it's "Get On Your Boots"; "the new U2 single will be called "Get On Your Boots" (note the subtle title change)"
• - Alan Cross in his "twitter"-blog II: "some new sounds, that could only come from an Eno/Lanois production"; "left me with a feeling similar to what I experienced when I heard “The Fly” for the first time"; "not a back-to-basics guitar/bass/drums track like “Vertigo” or even “Beautiful Day”; there’s some definite sonic evolution going on here"; "it does rock" (no ballad); "Bono manages to rhyme “submarine” with “gasoline” and says something about “don’t talk to me about the state of nations”; "there’s a portion of the melody that somehow reminds me of the cadence of the verses in Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up,” but as I write this, I’m not completely sure"; "part of the song reminded me of…something else"; "Did I like it? I didn’t hate it—but I need to hear it more before I really make up my mind about what I think about….anything to do with the song"; "filled with far more subtleties and complexities that anyone can hear with one listen"
• - skott100: "opens with a drum fill, not unlike "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn & John"; "signature riff is muscular and catchy in the "Vertigo" vein, with a rapid fire vocal pattern"; "Alan Cross compared the verses to "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello, and I can't say I disagree with that. It's evocative but I wouldn't call it a rip-off"; "chorus goes all middle eastern with Bono singing "You don't know how beautiful you are""; "half-tempo breakdown/bridge with a processed drum loop ... like John Bonham playing on a Massive Attack song before the song lurches back into the main riff for another verse and chorus"; "feels like a dense 7 minute epic crammed into about 3 and a half minutes"; "most striking are the drums"; "never heard so many layers of rhythm on a U2 song"; "a lot of very processed drums (I thought of Kasabian at one point and N*E*R*D* at another) and loops going on, coming in and out of the mix"; "at points it goes back to traditional sounding drums for emphasis"; "extremely tasteful, but complex enough to make my head spin"; "this is not U2 by the numbers"; "not a "return to form" or "back to basics""; "his is, what the kids like to call, some OTHER shit"; "the 21st Century version of U2"; "hey aren't looking back to their own catalog for inspiration anymore, if this song is any indication"
• - Billboard: "classic u2 rocker; ""premieres Monday (Jan. 19) on Dublin's 2FM. It will be released digitally Feb. 15 and physically the following day"; "the group will perform "Get on Your Boots" Feb. 18 at the BRIT Awards ceremony in London"
• - Dave Fanning: "the ‘Vertigo’ of the album - although a completely different kind of song"; "it’s very U2"; "a big song with lots of layers but not overproduced"; "great track"
• - Daniel Lanois: "a hell of a groove"; "some of the sounds were provided by The Edge himself. The main guitar parts"; "some nice bits of processing in there, there is a a little sound that sort of scoots by, like a high speed sound effect, that’s one that was born through the process of studio manipulation, and it’s one that stuck"; "a nice interesting mixture of technology and hand-played drums"; "there is a separate track that features kind of a bass drum loop that we did of Larry, and it runs along side of the main kit and is featured in certain sections of it"; "the marriage of hand-played and the electro combination"
• - Independent: "the belting single that shot straight to the top of the Irish airplay charts here stands as the halfway tune."
• - u2tour.de: "fits perfectly in the album's flow"; "awakens new life while providing a little musical recreation"; "not quite as dense and complex in structure as the previous tracks"
• Brunocam: "It is the single in advance, the subject most virulent of the whole disc and one of the most powerful and fastest-ever of the quartet, mixed strident guitar rock & roll, and a synthetic elements that Bono shouted: "Get on your boots / Sexy boots / You do not know how beautiful you are."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "The first single and perplexing some already. A mess of dirty guitars and urgent energy play through electronic bibs and bobs. You can hear Fly-era U2, with a little less edge, but here something niggling through earlier songs becomes clearer: they have been listening to Brooklyn's art rockers TV On For Radio. It makes some sense: TV On The Radio spent their youth listening to Eno and Bowie too."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Weakest track, why first single?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The first single, and oh, Escape Club – how wonderful you must be feeling at this moment! Ever since "Wild, Wild West" vanished from the charts in 1988 you've been waiting for a sign that you were something more than just another one hit wonder, so hearing U2 re-write the song must warm the cockles of your heart. And Elvis Costello must be smiling too, humming 'Pump It Up' under his breath as he dials his lawyers and wonders what sort of settlement to demand."
• - The Australian: "the current single pushes new buttons, with the Edge's heavy metal guitar riff and Bono's semi-rap leaving it sitting oddly, but rewardingly, somewhere between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Elvis Costello."
• "The future needs a big kiss, winds blows with a twist. Never seen a moon like this, can you see it too? Night is falling everywhere, rockets at the fun fair, Satan loves a bomb scare, but he won’t scare you. Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. You free me from the dark dream, candy floss ice cream. All our kids are screaming, but the ghosts aren’t real. Here’s where we gotta be: Love and community, laughter is eternity, if joy is real. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up. We’re into growing up, women of the future, hold the big revelations. I got a submarine, you got gasoline, I don’t want to talk about wars between nations. Not right now.
Hey, sexy boots, get on your boots, yeah. Not right now. Bossy boots. You don’t know how beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful you are.
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how beautiful you are. Hey sexy boots, I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations. Sexy boots, yeah. Let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, now. God, I’m going down, I don’t wanna drown now, meet me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, let me in the sound, sound, let me in the sound, sound, meet me in the sound, get on your boots, get on your boots, get on your boots, yeah hey hey")

7. "Stand Up Comedy"

• (- Q-source: "swaggering"; "wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks"; "home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas.""
• - Q-magazine: "rousing groove-based rocker with shades of Led Zep and Cream. Edge mentions that they're trying to keep Stand Up in a rough state and not overproduce it by putting it through Pro-Tools which cleans up imperfections"
• - RS-source: "Stand Up Comedy"; "another hard rock tune, powered by an unexpectedly slinky groove and a riff that lands between the Beatles' "Come Together" and Led Zep's "Heartbreaker." Edge recently hung out with Jimmy Page and Jack White for the upcoming documentary It Might Get Loud, and their penchant for blues-based rock rubbed off: "I was just fascinated with seeing how Jimmy played those riffs so simply, and with Jack as well," he says"
• - RS-article: "the words, which he keeps revising, have an almost hip-hop-like cadence: "Stand up, 'cause you can't sit down... Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady... Come on, you people, stand up for your love."; "We haven't quite gotten this right, and I'm the problem", Bono says of the tune, which is called "Stand Up Comedy" — at least for the moment. Tomorrow it will have new lyrics."; "the groove is slinkier than anything U2 have done in years."
• - Dave Fanning: "the nearest thing they’ve ever done to Led Zeppelin"
• - Independent: "grungy pop with strident drumming from Larry Mullen"
• - u2tour.de: "A song , that shows the influence of the sessions of The Edge, together with guitarist Jack White and Jimi Page for the film "It might get loud" had. "Stand Up Comedy" seems like straight from the 70s and could also fit on the soundtrack to "Across The Universe". A very rock, a catchy number, has all, a single needs. Here is finally The Edge "on fire".
• - Brunocam: "Another rocker, noisy and powerful. Bono pulls the voice, but it's the guitar that dominates. The fact that The Edge has participated in a documentary with Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) seems to have left marks, so the guitar evokes the Zeppelin of other times.To the original title - "Stand up," alluding to the humanist movement The Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty - was added "comedy" and listening to the song it is perceived why, what seems to be a moment of self-irony of Bono: " On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."
• Sunday Mail: "This proves the group are huge Led Zeppelin fans because Edge's guitar riff has a real Jimmy Page feel. In terms of being musically adventurous, it's not for the faint-hearted and definitely up there with "Exit" from The Joshua Tree in 1987."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A strutting 70s guitar finds the Edge channelling his inner Marc Bolan while that Brooklyn fractured dance of rock feels returns (and then becomes almost pure Madchester ecstasy nightclub). The "song" runs out a little earlier than the groove does but it doesn't seem fatal at all."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Huge, huge and not in a contrived way. Sounds like a war march and then flips it all upside down in the chorus. Bono in self deprecating mode, "I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both" he sings over the biggest edge riff ever. Pure anarchy."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Sorry, Red Hot Chili Peppers: just in case you were thinking of recording a version of The Stone Roses' career-ending "Love Spreads", be advised that U2 have beaten you to the punch. Bono says something about the Twin Towers and falling down and standing up, and then drops the line "Cross the road like a little old lady". You'd think that a band of U2's status could extend a deadline so that their lead singer could write some lyrics, surely?"
• - The Australian: "slightly funky"
• - Hot Press: "You also get the strong suspicion that Bono's talking about himself on 'Stand Up Comedy', another dirty white funk workout on which he declares: 'I can stand up for hope, faith, love/Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas/Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels'. Find me a Chris Martin line that self-deprecating and I'll buy you a pint."
• - Irish Independent: ""Stand Up Comedy" finds the frontman, who is given to wearing shoes with elevated soles, singing of "Napolean in high heels" before offering the killer line: "Be careful of small men with big ideas." The Edge's guitar playing is raw and dirty -- it's got Queens of the Stone Age written all over it. But the song fails to captivate. It just seems a little too contrived."
• - 'J2-D2': "probably my least favorite. It's a little U2-by-numbers, some of the lyrics are borderline, and it's not, like, subtle in any fashion. Edge's vocals feature a sweet echo effect, though, and his guitar has this nice slicey/piercing thing going on. I suspect it'll be one of those songs that gets a lot of live play on this tour and that in my dreams they would replace with, like, "Last Night on Earth." It's just Bono at his preachiest on the album—it evokes the same reaction I had to "Peace on Earth" and "Love and Peace or Else." The music is pretty good, though, still." 


• - "… beauty, dictator of the heart. I could stand up, for hope, faith, love, while I’m getting over certainty. Stop helping God across the road,
like a little old lady. Out from under your bed…";"On a voyage of discovery stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas." “I'm not a lover or a fighter, failed at both”. “Stand up for your love!”. "Cross the road like a little old lady".)

8. "Fez -- Being Born"

• - Billboard: "more experimental fare".
• - Independent: "on first listen, easily the album's most adventurous and challenging track with ambient synthy hooks"
• - u2tour.de: "The first minute, only electronic set pieces to hear"; "a phone ringing, a sample from "Get On Your Boots" - until then, the actual song starts". "Edge's guitar classic, keyboards set, before Bono's voice only restless, then to fast beats, melodically intervenes"; "partial U2 sound here unconsumed and crude as the early 80s on their first singles"; "in the middle part sound synthetic and almost reminiscent of Depeche Mode"; "But the guitar is the direction, Bono with few vocals"
• - Brunocam: "The African experience - recorded in Fez, Morocco - is the subject, one of the best and most adventurous. "Six o 'clock on the autoroute / Burning rubber, burning chrome / Boy of Cadiz and ferry home / Atlantic sea cut glass / African Sun at last" Bono launches, through a compact sound architecture. It is perhaps the one that best summarizes the album, combining the spirit of direct rock and recent rib adventurous 90s."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Starts off like incidental music from the last "Prince of Persia" video game, then snaps into a prog rock section while Bono sings about fire. Dammit, we should have started a drinking game based on references to fire. Too late now, I suppose."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"
• - Melbourne Herald Sun: " a brief flashback to the feel of 'The Unforgettable Fire'"
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This seems to be two songs hooked together, one a collection of odd sounds and shapes, the other a pulsing rock number which becomes something else again when the sonic oddness returns prior to a drifting away ending."
• - 'Walt Disney': "A nice break. A definite 'ZooTV' feel to it, sounds harrowing and claustrophobic on parts, but then spreads it wings like a sonic eagle. 2 songs in one, will take a few listens but ends like a funeral march, very gloomy."
• - Hot Press: "Things get even more experimental on 'Fez - Being Born', a wonderfully intriguing song of two halves that starts with disembodied voices, FM static and other ambient weirdness before giving way to Edge's trademark chiming guitar. Unconventional, but it works."
• - Irish Independent: "The album's most intriguing song is "FEZ -- Coming Home," which is a triumph of Eno's yen for experimentalism over U2's big sound. (In fact, Eno and Lanois share songwriting credits on several tracks.) It was one of the first songs recorded -- during sessions in the Moroccan city that gives the song its title -- and it's a hint about what this album could have sounded like if the band really had thrown caution to the wind. Its electro-ambient intro features the sound of birds singing and the bustle of Moroccan life (it was apparently recorded in the outdoor courtyard of an ancient riad) and Bono referencing the "let me in the sound" line from "Get On Your Boots," before it dissolves into a scattergun rock that shifts and slides into unexpected territory. The tempo changes are surprising and the song boasts a daring that the bulk of the other tracks, for all their merits, simply lack."
• - 'J2-D2': "is just fun; the second half sounds like "The Unforgettable Fire" on acid. They couldn't really perform it live, but it won't surprise me if a recording of the "Lemme in the sound" callback at the start opens the show or the encore. There are vocals in "Being Born," but they really blend into the music. It's kind of a tough track to pay attention to, if you know what I mean. I know that sounds weird, but it's a lot like the second half of Unforgettable Fire, in that the words are so deep in the mix that you don't start mindlessly singing along. There are backing vocals, but they're just echoing Bono's main vocal—vaguely reminiscent of the backing vocals on "Lemon," now that I think about it."
• - If it is identical with the working title track "Tripoli", we do know more:-
- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Bono talks about a song called "Tripoli", which is a guy on a motorcycle, a Moraccan french cop, whos going AWOL. He drives though France and Spain down to this village outside of Cadiz where you can actually see the fires of Africa burning"
• - RS-source: "this strikingly experimental song lurches between disparate styles, including near-operatic choral music, ZOOROPA-style electronics, and churning arena rock"
• RS-article: "ambitious possible album opener, which violently lurches between different sections"; ""after-dark" song"; "one of those tunes, where, Bono says, "we allow our interest in electronic music, in Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, to come out."
• - "Six o 'clock on the autoroute, Burning rubber, burning chrome. Boy of Cadiz and ferry home, Atlantic sea cut glass, African Sun at last")

9. "White As Snow"

• - NOT identical with the working title track "Winter", that won't be on the album, but will be a track on the 'Linear' film project. Source: Werners Wereld: Het nieuwe album van U2: gaat dat zien!. So the rumours, that the track was discarded for the album are true.
• - Independent: "a stark, stripped back and striking tune with imploring vocals"
• - u2tour.de: "This quiet and short track leads almost the end of the album"; "starts with an atmospheric electronic noise, through which the sound of a soulful acoustic guitar sets"; "it is expected formally supporting the voice of Johnny Cash, but Bono is using his voice here similarly intense". "The song is about forgiveness and how your own brother can become a stranger to you". "Musically reminiscent in parts of "Springhill Mining Disaster"
• Brunocam: "Atmospheric acoustic ballad, about a soldier lost in snow in Afghanistan. "Where I came from there were no hills at all / The land was flat, straight highway and the wider / My brother and i would drive for hours" recalls Bono, travel by the mind of a soldier lost in their memories, in an epic track."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "A ballad not just inspired by but evoking wide spaces and open skies. There are low rumbles and darting sounds, brass even. Could this be U2 aiming for Bruce Springsteen in his solo tales-of-the-desert mode?"
• - 'Walt Disney': "Another eerie moment, when the guitars seem to melt into orchestrations only to burst out again. Bono sounds creepy on places, come get me ghosts he sings (I think) over a Johnny Cash like apocalyptic ballad. Very depressing second half so far. Bono sounds like a character, like Macphisto on his death bed. Very surreal, gosh, this is cool."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "The absolute highlight without any doubt: a superb country lament. Bono makes a decent fist of it with Edge's down-tuned guitar the perfect accompaniment, but it would have been utterly perfect for the late Johnny Cash to wrap his weathered voice around (and would be one hell of a companion piece to the Cash/U2 collaboration "The Wanderer"). Bono's nature references – seeds, earth, snow, fruit – make perfect sense in this context. See, Bono, you can do it when you try."
• - The Australian: "adopts a more sombre tone, providing an acoustic contrast to the electrical storms on either side."
• - Hot Press: "U2 revisit Rattle And Hum 'Van Diemen's Land' with the sparse 'White As Snow', a track written for Jim Sheridan's Afghanistan war movie Brothers. Both lyrically and musically it trays into the same territory as Springsteen's The Ghost Of Tom Joad, with an extra twist of Leonard Cohen for good measure."
• - Irish Independent: "One of the slower tracks on the album, its intro recalls Sigur Ros while, later, a French horn highlights the evocative lyrics."
• - 'J2-D2': "is simply gorgeous. Like an old folk song, almost."

• - "Where I came from there were no hills at all, the land was flat. The highway, straight and wide. My brother and I would drive for hours
like we’d years, instead of… ". “Come get me ghosts”. “The water was icy, the road refuses strangers.” “They were hunting in the woods.”)

10. "Breathe"

• (- Q-source: "particular excitement was reserved for"; "still a work in progress"; "Eno suggests, this is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on"
• - Q-magazine: "Arabic cello gives way to joyful chorus. Brian Eno says this is U2's best ever song. It's 8pm and Eno, Bono and Will.i.am are on Olympic Studio 1 writing a cello part for a song called Breathe that U2 - a touch ambitiously - are only beginning to record in ths final fortnight, never mind mix – the singer belts out a rollicking vocal featuring door-to-door salesman, a cockatoo and a chorus that begins "Step out into the street, sing your heart out""
• - RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article: "tweaks on his computer what he (The Edge) estimates to be the 80th incarnation"
• - Independent: "starts off with a trip-hop beat and cello playing before transforming into an all-out rocker"
• - u2tour.de: "booming drums open this song; "Bono on the fast"; "only the chorus is like a U2 classic"; "a dense and intense sound experience, which recalls carefully "Until The End Of The World"; "the song is known Beachclip No. 2."
• - Brunocam: "Eastern slow start with allusions to the level of the arrangements, but then there is a growing continuum of intensity, what is the favorite song of producer Brian Eno. It is indicative of a more complex disc - each song integrates various dynamics - that his two predecessors."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "This is pushier at immediately, coming with a bit of attitude. Did Bono really just say he is "not somebody's cockatoo"? He definitely says "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease" and it's an apt description of this land of atmosphere and aggression."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Save the best til last. One of the most uplifting choruses I can remember. Breaks the recent gloom in a profound way. Just a testament to how cohesive this album feels, like a musical journey, ha! I'm serious though."
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Frantically bowed strings hit harmonics over Mullen, Jr's thundering tom toms, before the rest of the band burst in at cross-rhythms and Bono starts up a scansion-free declamatory vocal like a third-rate Bob Dylan. Still, once it locks in the chorus it all makes sense. Either the album's picking up towards the end or I'm undergoing some sort of musical Stockholm Syndrome in which I fall in love with my captors as a coping mechanism. That said, Edge does pull out a three-note guitar solo that suggests he's never even seen a guitar before, and it's nice of Tears For Fears to let U2 use their keyboard sounds."
• - The Australian: "U2 by numbers"; "contains all of the album's recurring themes - love, hope, seizing the day, celebrating life."
• - Hot Press: "Eno has decided that the penultimate track, 'Breathe', is 'the best U2 song ever'. While that assessment is perhaps a little over the top, the Beatles-esque track is a genuine standout with Bono evoking the spirit of St John Devine and unnamed ju-ju men, as a hyperactive cello and Larry's tom-toms fight it out in the background."
• - Irish Independent: "finds Bono in semi spoken-word mode, although the song doesn't do enough to draw the listener in."
• - 'J2-D2': "I felt about it a little like I felt about "Stand Up." It grows quickly, though, and it's one of my favorites on the album now. It takes the preachiness of "Stand Up" and turns it around into this awesome statement of joyful resolve. They had better play it live."
• - "…things I need you to know. Three, coming from a long line of traveling sales people on my mother's side, I wasn’t gunna buy just anyone’s cockatoo. So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home?
Would you? These days are better than that, these days are better than that"; “Walk out, into the street, sing your heart out”. "not somebody's cockatoo". "I'm running down the road like loose electricity while the band in my head plays a striptease")

11. "Cedars Of Lebanon"

• (- Q-source: not mentioned ...
• - Q-magazine: "Daniel Lanois instigated closer that finds Bono imagining himself as a weary, lovelorn war correspondent "squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline". Ends with the possibly telling line "Choose your enemies carefully cos they will define you""
• - RS-source: ""On this album, you can feel what is going on in the world at the window, scratching at the windowpane," says Bono, who sings this atmospheric ballad from the point of view of a war correspondent"
• -RS-article: not mentioned
• - Independent: "a reflective parting glass for album number 12, finishing on the line, "Choose your enemies carefully because they will define you"
• - u2tour.de: "gloomy keyboards, backed by minimalist lead guitar playing the last song on the album"; "Bono speaks more than he sings and acts very dominant on this track. Drip-end beats and a strong bass line reminding of "If You Were That Velvet Dress." Bono sings from the perspective of a war reporter in Lebanon and the recurring line "return the call to home" sounds like a distant, electronic noise"
• - Brunocam: "Bono wears the role of a war correspondent for atmospheric evocation not far from songs like "With or without you." The tone is confessional, the reflective verses end: "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you / Make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you / They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friend."
• - Sunday Mail: "Bono almost speaks his vocal over a more hymnal, hypnotic backing which leads to a beautiful, almost choral, hook. Some atmospheric Edge guitar creeps in and builds the mood. This song is so good you don't want it to end. A fitting finale to a classic U2 album."
• - The Sydney Morning Herald: "Lyrically and musically strongly reminiscent of a film noir narration (Bono as Walter Neff? Why not?), the central character is a man cut off from affection and life in general. Some really interesting harmonies - Eno at work again - and a closing set of lines worth pondering for implications. "Choose your enemies well for they will define you ... they are going to last with you longer than your friends"."
• - 'Walt Disney': "Back to the darkness with glimpses of light. Like the end of the horizon is just another beginning. So many profound lines, where did this Bono go?"
• - 'Andrew P Street': "Yep, they close on a ballad – and it's about world suffering. "Squeeze a complicated life into a simple headline," Bono sighs, and we all agree. "Yes, Bono," we weep, as one. "Oh media, when will you learn?" Then we go to a different perspective, that of a displaced person in a warzone. "A soldier brings oranges," Bono sings, "he got out of a tank." And with that clanging line the magic is dispelled, like the unexpected slam of a toilet door. It's a nice idea, and the tune's a good one, but honestly: some sort of lyric editor would have been wise."
• - The Australian: "adopty a more sombre tone"
• - Hot Press: "If ever there was a song for the times, it's the closing 'Cedars of Lebanon', a beautiful half-spoken ballad in which Bono narrates from the point of view of a weary war correspondent - the thing is that you just know that there's a lot of the U2 frontman in there too. 'Choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you/Make them interesting 'cos in some ways they will mind you/They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends/Gonna last with you longer than your friends', he pronounces, before the song does the musical equivalent of The Sopranos' last scene and comes to an abrupt halt, ending the record on a suitably low key and yet indisputably high note."
• - Irish Independent: "Closer "Cedars of Lebanon" is the most overtly political song, and a real grower. Like many of its siblings on this album, its moody atmospheric texture recalls Achtung Baby-era U2. It's a downbeat song on which to conclude an album brimming with life and hope."
• - 'J2-D2': "reminds me of "Wake Up Dead Man," because of the tempo and because it ends so suddenly, on a somber note—and I guess because some of Bono's lyrics approach "Wake Up"'s quality, not in content, but in precision. It doesn't seem like one they'll break out for the tour. It doesn't have a solo like "Love Is Blindness". (There's a bridge, I guess, but not a raging solo like that.) It's a quiet, simple song—very restrained."
• - "Woke up in my clothes, in a dirty heap. Spent the night trying to make a deadline. Squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline. I have your face in an old Polaroid, tidying the children’s clothes & toys, you’re smiling back at me. I took the photo from the…";“the shitty world sometimes produces a rose”. “the best of us are masters of compression.” "choose your enemies carefully 'cos they will define you, make them interesting' cos in some ways they will mind you, they're not there in the beginning but when your story ends, gonna last with you longer than your friend." “Return the call to home”)

Tracklist

1. "No Line on the Horizon" (4.12)
2. "Magnificent" (5.24)
3. "Moment of Surrender" (7.24)
4. "Unknown Caller" (6.03)
5. "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (4.14)
6. "Get On Your Boots" (3.25)
7. "Stand Up Comedy" (3.50)
8. "Fez - Being Born" (= 'Tripoli'?) (5.17)
9. "White As Snow" (4.41)
10. "Breathe" (5.00)
11. "Cedars of Lebanon" (4.13)

bonus-tracks
On the contrary to earlier rumours, obviously there will be bonus tracks for the album. German i-tunes does list now for the big package not only "Anton Corbijn's exclusive film" and the "Digital Booklet" - but also two other, additional tracks as bonus:
- "No Line On The Horizon 2"
- "Get On Your Boots (Punk Version)"

On 'Linear' will appear the track "Winter"
• (- Q-source: "featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno"
• - Q-magazine: "6 minute ballad. Echoes of Simon & Garfunkel in this poignant, acoustic string laden ballad about a soldier in the snow of Afghanistan. Will appear in the new film 'Brothers' starring Tobey Maguire about the emotional fallout of the war. Edge on backing vocals with Bono for Winter""
• -RS-source: not mentioned
• -RS-article:"lovely discarded ballad"

Thanks for this!

Can't wait to find out more about Every Breaking Wave and Tripoli (if it turns out not to be Fez) as well!

 

[Popmart Shopper]

Wow, nice idea, too. Don't think, we have had this thery here yet. Thanx for sharing ...

No problem.The more songs,B sides, or new albums in a year that we can get out of this would be amazing.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Thanks for this!
Can't wait to find out more about Every Breaking Wave and Tripoli (if it turns out not to be Fez) as well!

Yes, and now we know: Maybe there has to another album to be filled, too, in the near future. So some of the tunes, we might miss –if they had not been re-worked for NLOTH – could end up there.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

LAST UPDATE (02/19/09)
With a real new masterpiece being born, I kind of let slip this thread into the darkness. We really do know now about NLOTH.

I just want to thank everybody here on the board for having kept this 'analytical' thread alive, for sharing, for discussing, for contributing, for writing PM to me. I do think, these contributions here show, what a great worldwide community we are here in this forum: a unique space for U2 fans. Being really moved by this, I'd also like to give a very special "thank you" @Sicy and her colleagues for their work and their enthusiasm here.

Now I wish everybody to enjoy the new songs, if you listen to them now or in the upcoming days. I'm happy to see you in the various threads – and on a tour, that could have no better album to build on.

Sincerely yours,
ZOOTVTOURist

 

[catlhere]

Everything!

But everything you know is wrong...

 

[dan_smee]

LAST UPDATE (02/19/09)
With a real new masterpiece being born, I kind of let slip this thread into the darkness. We really do know now about NLOTH.

I just want to thank everybody here on the board for having kept this 'analytical' thread alive, for sharing, for discussing, for contributing, for writing PM to me. I do think, these contributions here show, what a great worldwide community we are here in this forum: a unique space for U2 fans. Being really moved by this, I'd also like to give a very special "thank you" @Sicy and their colleagues for their work and their enthusiasm here.

Now I wish everybody to enjoy the new songs, if you listen to them now or in the upcoming days. I'm happy to see you in the various threads – and on a tour, that could have no better album to build on.

Sincerely yours,
ZOOTVTOURist

ZOOTVTOURist, your efforts in starting and maintaining that thread are well and truely appreciated.

You are a deadset champion, and someone I'd love to have a beer with one day.

Kudos to you sir, kudos