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allkub said:
What you all make of this one from Dotmusic..........

Yikes........The negative reviews are stacking up.

U2 - 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb'
(Tuesday November 30, 2004 1:23 PM )

As part of our ongoing investigation into Helena Christensen's indie pop credentials (card carrying member of the Arab Strap fan club, huge Belle & Sebastian fan - no we're not joking), LAUNCH found itself watching a BBC4 documentary on the supermodel turned celebrity snapper. In it, our girl revealed that when she photographed Bono, she insisted he remove his ever-present sunglasses. Mr Vox was a little bemused. "Insincerity is hugely underrated," he smirked. As long as he kept his shades on, he argued, he could be as insincere as he liked.

Twenty-four years and over a dozen albums into their career, U2 are now at the point where they're actually at their best when they're the most insincere. Track one, single one, "Vertigo", is an excellent case in point. Riding on a gloriously raw garage riff, chopped out with obvious glee by the man we still have to refer to as The Edge, it's all posture, no substance - all rock'n'roll fun, not a hint of global conscience. Your first thought upon hearing it is that U2 have somehow stumbled into an Indian Adolescence, fired up with testosterone and urgency, and that this is going to be their all-guns-blazing, teaching-the-young-uns-a-trick-or-two, comeback-and-a-half album.

Alas, no. As much as he might like to joke about clasping onto insincerity, Bono just can't help himself. He drips sincerity, oozes it from every over-emoting pore, imbues into every brow-beaten syllable, every trite generalisation and universal chord. And the more sincere he gets, the more prone to cant and cliché his lyricism becomes. "I want to hear you when you call/Do you feel anything at all?" he ponders on "Miracle Drug". "Lay down your guns/All your daughters of Zion/All your Abraham sons" in "Love And Peace Or Else" is his contribution to the Middle East peace process (well that was easy, why didn't anyone think of this before?). It's all so vague, meaning well but contributing little.

Musically, it's either U2 on autopilot, rattling through the epic-lite chiming songwriting style that's launched a thousand melodramatic outsider complexes over the years, or U2 thinking they're being awfully clever and subversive when they're actually nothing of the sort. With "Vertigo", the enjoyment's in hearing a band just having fun. On "Love And Peace Or Else", however, they clearly believe they've mastered the f*cked up blues of PJ Harvey just by whacking on a fuzz pedal and getting a little basic for a second. "City Of Blinding Lights" sounds so desperate to get on the soundtrack for "Lost In Translation 2" (Look! Ennui! Neon lights! C'mon…), it's embarrassing. "What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?" frets Bono, in full ho-hum mode. "All Because Of You" is The Dandy Warhols taking a fag break. "Original Of The Species" sounds like Oasis ripping off Embrace, with neither side coming off well.

There are moments. "A Man And A Woman" is a tender George Michael cover waiting to happen, a surprisingly effective rumination on desire and commitment. "Fast Cars" marries a relentless flamenco with Thom Yorke's information overload/paranoia. And even the songs that seem to be yet more of the same old U2 ("Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own", "Miracle Drug") have a grand sweep that's possible to admire even if there's not much love to speak of.

But mostly this is U2 trying too hard, caring too much, being too insufferably genuine without having anything to be particularly genuine about. Or as Bono himself says: "Some things you shouldn't get too good at/Like smiling, crying and celebrity". And: "Sometimes you can't make it/The best you can do is fake it". If only those shades had stayed on for a little longer.

5 out of 10.

by Ian Watson
Click to expand...

That review gets a big MEH from me. I think "Vertigo" is one of the weaker tracks from the album...yet he claims it to be the best. "City of Blinding Lights" is, in my opinion, one of U2's finest in YEARS (and that's saying something!), yet this schmuck disregards it for sounding "desperate" :huh:

Whatever...different strokes for different folks, I guess :shrug:
 
Irvine511 said:
from The Onion ... terrific review (hope no one has already posted it):



Advertisement




U2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (Buy It!)
(Interscope)


In the period following U2's discovery of clatter and clang with Achtung Baby, a vocal minority of fans yearned for the clean, classic sound of the band's early days. As exciting as U2's years drawing from the information overload of irony-drenched end-of-the-century pop culture could be, the traditionalists seem to have won out in the end. The 1997 album Pop didn't pop, but 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, with its earnest lyrics and sweeping guitar heroics, connected with a fresh take on the group's old style. Sometimes innovation gets overrated, and it's not like the band is all that safe even when playing it safe. Few acts could work on the large scale that U2 favors and not look silly: Nudged a little, The Edge could sound self-indulgent, and it's almost scary how little it would take for larger-than-life, heart-on-his-sleeve frontman Bono to resemble that guy from Live.

Yet in spite of the odds, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb finds U2 sounding just as passionate as it did on 1980's Boy, and just as committed to converting that passion into sprawling pop songs about God, love, and the world's injustices. Given the times and Bono's ascension to the status of a pop diplomat more likely to be seen with the Pope than Paris Hilton, it would be fair to expect an album loaded with political statements. Instead, they get folded into even bigger themes. Rather than a prophet on a hill, Bono just sounds like some friendly, well-meaning fellow when on "Love And Peace Or Else" he mixes vague talk of Middle East peace into a hope that everyone listening leave the earth with a "wrinkled face and a brand-new heart." "Crumbs From Your Table" begins as a plea to a neglectful lover, then quietly brings the same drama into the geopolitical arena.

The emphasis, however, remains on the human experience, and U2 always has the sound to match. The first single, "Vertigo," summons the nervous feeling of being somewhere late at night where there's too much going on—some of it tempting, some of it frightening, some of it unhealthy, and most of it somewhere in between. An exercise in quietude reminiscent of the Joshua Tree days, "One Step Closer" recalls the death of Bono's father to the accompaniment of what sounds like the first great rock hymn of the 21st century. When "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" builds on a slow Adam Clayton bassline, a between-the-notes Larry Mullen drum tap, and a Bono vocal that builds in drama until it explodes with the line "You're the reason why the opera is in me," as The Edge unfurls a muscular, angelic guitar line that only he could play, U2 secures its status as the Biggest Band On Earth, assuming the planet is still big enough to hold it. —Keith Phipps
Click to expand...


I am really really shocked by this one. The Onion is usually harsh.:ohmy:
 
ha! all these lame-oh magazine and webzine writers who think they can review u2.... don't they know they should leave it to US?
 
The worst review ..ever!

just brutal!....is not a review, is pure hate!


The Review :
THIS is, for a good part of the proceedings, an awfully strident album – grating and eardrum-shattering at certain points, loud and clamorous at others. When it does get quiet, it still sounds like too many undesirable things are going on. Now that we’ve this out of the way, let’s examine the evolution/degeneration (depending on your perspective) of the Irish band, once comprising quite possibly four of the most important musicians in the world of popular music.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sees U2 at the crossroads – whether to return to roots (ie, the 1980s) or to keep forging ahead with the controversial, fan-alienating techno approach of the past dozen years. Ultimately, they copped out and walked the line, turning up the levels on the mix and adding generous layers of pointless noise to what could basically have been a good, workmanlike rock album of a vintage disposition.


Just listen to certain sections of one song somewhere deep into the album – A Man and a Woman – and you’ll get what I mean. There’s the old U2 surfacing, provided old-time fans a tantalising glimpse of what might have been, before things return to the less rosy present.


It’s not that the songs are bad – in fact, melodically, there are an obscene number of decent, rock-era U2-type songs here, starting with the explosive opener, Vertigo ? tunes like Miracle Drug, Love and Peace or Else, All Because of You (why does Desire keep ringing in my ears?), A Man and a Woman and One Step Closer all show signs that Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr may have closely re-examined their earlier and more recent approaches to songwriting and decided to go with the former.


But they had to spoil it all with the production, thanks no doubt in part to longtime associate Steve Lillywhite who, ironically, helmed the console during U2’s best years as well. He’s not the only one, though – you find familiar names like Flood, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno turning up in the credits as well!


The Edge’s atmospheric guitar work used to be a signature in itself – here it sounds too rough, jostling with the synths (and other things in the mix) to re-establish an identity. You only have to pull out your copy of The Unforgettable Fire, October or even The Joshua Tree (the last relevant U2 album, for me at least) to realise how nicely minimalism and organic tones worked for the band.


It all sounds a bit artificial here, like Mullen’s drum sounds (which have never been the same since Achtung Baby) ? there used to be lots of space within U2’s music, now there’s just a lot more happening in the mix, which is both distracting and exasperating. The opening track should be enough of a warning to those who would proceed with the rest of the album.


Finally, lyrically, the album did little for me, which I felt was a rather sad reflection on U2’s relevance – or lack of it – these days.


Decent songs, pity about the production, which used to be a crucial factor in U2’s scheme of things back then. They seem to have forgotten how it should work.


Who knows, perhaps they really meant to call this How to Dismantle a Rock Band. You have been warned.
 
I think calling it "pure hate" is not particularly accurate. It's a harsh review, but I've heard many of these criticisms about this album from others too. For some they are a relatively minor annoyance, for this person they ruin it.

Not every bad review is "pure hate," sometimes it's just a difference of opinion.


*edited to add:

I'd also like to know who and where the review is from. A link would be nice.
 
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Remember the few lines on HTDAAB in the magazine Stop? Where they called it their best, next to AB?

Well they published a longer review today - it got 4 stars out of 5:

U2 are the only great rockers, that keep adding the open mission as brave, honest musicians with a conscience to their creativity in its over 25 year long career. Their last record How to dismantle an atomic bomb, with its lyrical input, is the sum of the thinking, critisism and slogans on life around us up until now. Melodic and half anthemic songs found a refuge in anti-war, religious and social context, from Love and peace or else to the final Yahweh. But the most interesting find is that U2 - intentionally or not - try to get back to their roots with the choice of producer Steve Lillywhite. He set in stone their first three records that regardless of their impressive later discography remain their best works. Today's again installment shows itself very simply on the last album. On How to dismantle an atomic bomb, U2 are neo-classics of the recognisable early sound without the unnecessary glamorous touches. This means, that they, as rockers, succesfully got over the mid-life crisis and searching its identity in "discotheques".
 
Sujesh Pavithran? I read this guy's work every time I visit Pakistan.

Seriously, though, everybody is entitled to an opinion. I think it is ironic, though, that s/he (sorry, but the name is not gender-specific in my vernacular) points to The Unforgettable Fire as an example of one of U2's better efforts, while lambasting Atomic Bomb as over-produced. Go figure, since UFF was arguably one of the band's most over-produced efforts.
 
I agree with many parts of the review, to be honest :yes:

I think it´s time to point out something important here:

A BAD REVIEW DOESN´T MEAN A U2-HATERS !!!!

Every fan should make his/her own choices and tastes about this new U2 album. It´s widespread that every new album seems to be something holly, something you can´t touch, etc... why ???


:wave:
 
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Atyclb was to put them back up amongst big selling acts, this album could have seen them take a different route but they preferred to cop out, as the reviewer said, which I kinda agree with. Also he is right about the production or mixing on certain songs. I have said this before but I have been listening to City Of Blinding Lights and it is the worst mix I have ever heard of a U2 track, EVER! If you listen to this song then listen to something like Yahweh, which is a decent track and it sounds like it has been mixed properly, the difference is staggering. Anyone that does not understand what I am on about listen to the two tracks mentioned through a Dolby Digital amp, in normal surround and you will see what I mean. It sounds like COBL is in mono, everything and I mean everything seems to be coming out of the centre speaker, which distorts at loud volume.

I don't agree with the reviewer saying that the last relevant album for U2 was The Joshua Tree, another nobhead reviewer that completely forgets about the importance of U2's 90's releases.
 
From the other end of the spectrum: this from the Cleveland Free Times:
**********************
Discourse : Atomic's Power : U2's new album might be the best of its career
By Anastasia Pantsios Wednesday, December 01, 2004

U2
Still striving, questioning and celebrating on its 11th studio album.
When U2 released All That You Can't Leave Behind in October 2000, it was heralded as a return to straightforward rock 'n' roll after a decade spent wandering in the outback of (what some perceived as misguided) experimentation. It was a huge success. Many of the songs became post-9/11 anthems of sorts with their tinge of political significance and their chin-up, let's-forge-ahead sentiments. It didn't really rock very hard, falling off quickly into a series of earnest, introspective, even evanescent tracks that could function as background music.

It's unlikely many will listen to the newly released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb that way. On it, the group's returned to what it's done best since we first heard from it in 1980. It completes questioning, celebratory lyrics with spacious music full of perfectly calibrated dynamic changes. With only a handful of well-spaced, well-placed tracks that fall back into the languor of much of All That You Can't Leave Behind , this is an album to jump around to and celebrate life by, even while acknowledging and mourning its losses and injustices.

Opening with a shouted Spanish count-off leading into the giddy “Vertigo,” the CD is an aural journey through U2's entire history. Echoes of Edge's distinctive chiming guitar that drove the band's 1980 debut Boy keep creeping in, subtly mutated, on tracks like “Miracle Drug,” to accent and add sparkle to the clouds of ambient synthesizer that earned the band so much unfair criticism on 1997's Pop . Here, on tracks like the urgent “Love and Peace or Else” and the album's big, lush ballad “Original of the Species” where they form an orchestral wall of strings, they're completely effective, as the band draws together melodies, chord changes, lyrics, dynamic ideas and sonic textures from its 25-year career, and mixes, matches and blends them to come up with some of the best songs — and possibly the best album — of its career.

Past producers Steve Lillywhite, Flood, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois were all involved, as well as Pretenders producer Chris Thomas, in creating an album that simultaneously reminds a listener of almost everything the band has previously done and takes it one step further. Lillywhite, who produced the band's first two albums and has worked with it intermittently since, was the primary producer, and he's helped to shape the songs into dramatic form. The quieter moments, such as the mighty, measured “Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own,” written for singer Bono's father, who died in 2002, and the reflective “One Step Closer” don't lack contrast and tension the way, for instance, “In a Little While” and “Grace” from All That You Can't Leave Behind did.

Thematically, the band's still dealing with love and hope and bridging the spaces between people and the possibility of justice in the world. Bono's lyrics match the mood of the music: expansive, open-armed and open-ended enough to be universal without being too vague. He's one of the few able to pull off the love-song-that-could-be-about-Jesus (“All Because of You”), a trick favored by contemporary Christian bands that usually leads to artistic catastrophe.

Unlike the blind-faith Christians that infest that genre, he can write a song like the achingly pretty yet forceful “Crumbs from Your Table,” which addresses the issue of people not living their faith. He sings “You speak of signs and wonders/But I need something other/I would believe if I was able/I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table” and makes one of his most overt poltical statements when he says “Where you live should not decide/Whether you live or whether you die.” He's clearly not George Bush's type of Christian.

That's further proved by the album's powerful closing track, the soaring benediction “Yahweh.” It's musical prayer to be transformed by God's love and mercy, with idiosyncratic lyrics about humility and concession to a higher power: “Take this soul/stranded in some skin and bones/take this soul/And make it sing.” Yet Bono, ever questioning, seems to be asking the “Yahweh” of the worshipful, ecstactic chorus why the world is what it is when he tags the chorus with “Yahweh, tell me now/why the dark before the dawn.”
 
What really pisses me off is that all of these reviewers that gave the album a bad rating will be kissing U2s ass when they come to town for the live show.

I would love to hand U2 all the bad reviews they are getting in each city and let them have there own say.

Most of these reviewers are totally 2 faced bastards anyway.
 
Here's one from a local paper here in Tampa. They are the "alternative" paper.

WeeklyPlanet

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
U2
Interscope
The title is a red herring, or perhaps a far-flung metaphor. U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is neither manifesto nor polemic. It is -- give or take -- a collection of love songs. McCartney's safe, though. These are not silly love songs, but Bono's personalized ruminations on the universal power of love -- wrapped around the Irish megaband's best collection of hooks in quite some time.

Atomic Bomb is the most heavily buzzed U2 album since '91's Achtung Baby, due in large part to the quartet's cross-promotion with Apple's iPod that landed the hook for "Vertigo" on TV about a million times. Radio play? Pshaw. Who needs radio play? (Although "Vertigo" has garnered plenty of that, too.)

After being inundated with the iPod commercial, I expected to react to the full-length "Vertigo" with tired ears. I was surprised to discover that the single, clocking in at a crisp 3:13, burst from the speakers, driven by the Edge's unusually punchy guitar and Bono's galvanizing vocal. The song ranks in the upper echelon of U2 singles.

Elsewhere, the band displays its flair for building from smolder to crescendo, which tends to give U2 songs their epic flavor. On "Miracle Drug," the Edge alternates between slurry atmospherics and huge, chiming chords, while Bono's vocal evolves from vulnerable to fervent.

The quartet originally intended the project to be a straight-up rock record, with producer Chris Thomas at the helm, but eventually expanded its scope and brought in the likes of Daniel Lanois, Flood, Nellee Hooper, Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno and Jacknife Lee. This confluence of sonic styles benefits Atomic Bomb by increasing its textural range. Although the Edge's guitar is the music's instrumental backbone, it's augmented with subtle keyboards and electronics, as well as little diversions like pedal steel and mandolin (both courtesy of Lanois).

They did not, however, forget to rock. "All Because of You" is a flat-out stomping tune, driven by viscerally unprocessed drums and guitar sounds. "Crumbs From Your Table" dials back the tempo a bit, but moves with a pulsing urgency. "Love and Peace or Else" begins with a doomy smear of bass-heavy fuzz and then breaks into a Clash-like strut.

Of the more sedate material, "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" is a real gem, with a soul-infused chorus that wouldn't sound out of place on the lips of Luther Vandross. The disc's only real miss is the overwrought "A Man and a Woman," with a melody that could've come from Burt Bacharach on an off day (further hampered by Bono overselling the vocal).

But now I'm quibbling. In the '90s, U2's dalliance with irony and aloofness threatened the band's relevance. After a solid return to form with 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, the pride of Dublin is not just back on track, but full speed ahead. --ERIC SNIDER
http://www.weeklyplanet.com/spins.html
 
I just wanted to say that the Spin interview was amazing and to have one of my heros, Bono, speak of admiring one of my others, Steve Jobs, was pretty cool
 
After one not-so-good review - the one without stars and one glowing I posted, here's another one - 3 out of 5 stars:

"There comes a time, when virtually any artist stops looking into the future and starts looking back into the past, in the time of the original inspiration and youthful energy. For U2, this time has arrived with the new album. The innovativness that was on the trinity Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Pop, has gone away and left space to the pure nostalgia reproduction of sounds from 20 years ago, times of pure rock albums Boy, October and War. This isn't surprising, as they used the same producer. At times there are echoes of With or without you (intro to Yahweh) or Bad and One, but most of all the guitar playing of The Edge from the times of I will follow, Stories for Boys or Gloria. The first single Vertigo is a pure repetition of Gloria and Beautiful day, only the primal freshness and the authentic wildness aren't to be heard. It is replaced by the experience of older musicians that are doing exercises of style. Lovable for fans of early U2, but not enough for those who want something new."
 
Found this on Elites tv. The article is rather long so I'll post the last pararaph and the link:

http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2004/Dec/EEN41c054cd2b937.html

U2 GETS THE CALL FROM HALL

That notion, appealing to the hard core and the mainstream is a fine line to toe, and few bands have done it successfully. The Beatles did it. The Stones did it, as did Led Zeppelin and The Who. For that they have become rock immortals, and now U2 has entered their most rarified atmosphere. Thankfully, unlike those four other bands, they managed to avoid losing a group member to an early death that has enabled them to continue to make compelling and entertaining music over two decades after they first started. This spring they will enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I would hope that whatever memorabilia is donated is placed in the proper region, among the elites rather than with the very goods.
***********************
It's a good article, but I don't believe him when he say's in the article that he's not really a U2 fan. Doesn't sound that way to me.:wink:
 
Wall Street Journal gives glowing review of HTDAAB...

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet...major publication, excellent review...

An Instant Classic

by Jim Fusilli

It took 11 months and three weeks, but 2004 finally produced a great rock album: "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (Interscope) by U2. With respect to the likes of the Von Bondies, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, and other terrific bands whose '04 releases might be compared to U2's, "Atomic Bomb" brims with so much poise and invention that it seems to belong to a more accomplished musical scene.

Now in its 28th year, U2 has been together since the members of the Von Bondies and others were playing with Fisher-Price xylophones, but age alone doesn't make a fine wine. On "Atomic Bomb," the Irish quartet displays an energy and enthusiasm that belies its veteran status and reinforces its reputation as one of the world's great groups. U2 attains its excellence here not by toying with its successful formula, but by ratcheting up the energy and intensity. The Edge's guitars squeal, squeak and scratch while Mullen adds texture with tasty, instinctive percussion. And to create an eerie, layered effect, on several tracks Bono sings two lines an octave apart, and yet he remains as expressive and charismatic as ever. Clayton on bass is a revelation; of course, no rock instrumental trio can thrive without a great bassist, but Clayton is so forceful, so melodic yet so in lock-step with Mullen and the Edge that his performance demands reconsideration of his body of work. That is, has he always been this good? The group's confidence and cohesiveness heightens the quality of the songs, elevating "Atomic Bomb" to among U2's best works.

If "Atomic Bomb" echoes another U2 recording, it's the group's 1991 release "Achtung Baby" (Island), which found the band exploring an edgier, experimental sound and yet was home to the ballads "Love Is Blindness" and the remarkable "One". Though experimentation is at a minimum here, "Atomic Bomb" has several lovely down-tempo numbers, including "One Step Closer" and "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own," Bono's touching tributes to his late father. And big themes abound as the lyrics ponder death, God, beauty, politics and war. but the rush of energy in the rocking numbers like "Vertigo" - the soundtrack to the ubiquitous iPod TV commercial - and the Edge's showcase "City of Blinding Lights" give "Atomic Bomb" its sense of triumph that makes it an instant classic.
 
Great review, thanks for posting! :)
I wholeheartedly agree with what they're saying about Adam.

I have to say, though... Von Bondies?? IMO they only have one decent song (c'mon c'mon) and no-one will probably remeber them in another 10 years or so... ;)
 
That review is great. Jim Fusilli knows a lot about U2. He knows what he's talking about...
 
This album should recieve high praise because it is that good...and its good to see major publications saying so.
 
It was actually 10 months and 3 weeks. I guess the proofreaders at the WSJ had the week off!
 
Actually it was 11 months and 3 weeks if you didnt download the album.

I know because it was released on my birthday!
 
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