NLOTH Album Reviews Pt 3

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Riding the ups and downs of these reviews is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t get why some people in here take any and all criticism as if it’s personal. Remember, you’re generally the same people screaming “Subjective! Subjective!”

I hate reviews that you can tell require no actual listening to the album – they either hate U2 with a passion regardless and were only ever going to slam it, or they adore U2 with a passion regardless and were only ever going to gush over it – and I hate reviews that are poorly/lazily written as much as the next person, but any well written, thoughtful review that takes issue to a thing or two shouldn’t be shot down as if it’s a 2 page rant about your slutty mother. That’s crazy.
 
guys I found a review!! all by myself!! :hyper:

http://www.state.ie/blog/review-u2-%E2%80%93-no-line-on-the-horizon/comment-page-1/

The commentators are saying that Ireland needs an Obama-like icon to lift us out of our current economic and social gloom; a figurehead to inspire celebration, to provide a pointer to a new and promising horizon. Well, wherever there’s a cause, there’s usually Bono and co. providing the timely, rousing, crowd-pleasing soundtrack. They’ve got the whole world in their hands, after all. Could U2’s 12th studio album be that flagship of hope, sailing us bravely away from these troubled waters?

Sadly, it just doesn’t sound that way. If anything, it’s as hesitant and directionless as the rest of us; in that sense, they’ve hit the zeitgeist square on the head. But, as an entity, No Line On The Horizon may be U2’s most disjointed album yet.

Perhaps too many songwriters and producers spoiled the broth (Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois have their hands in practically everything here); maybe jumping from studio to far-flung studio got in the way of continuity; or it could be that the world and all its woes provided Bono with too many distractions from the day job. Whatever the reason, this plays like a record without a real master plan.

It certainly begins positively enough. The title track cries “we are back” from the rooftops with its cinematic bravura, kitsch 1960s’ piano, rumbling bassline and its shoulder-shimmying, air-punching rhythm, which distantly recalls ‘The Fly’; if only this had been the last Bond theme. Better still is track two, ‘Magnificent’, an archetypal U2 thriller/stomper with one of the best riffs The Edge has produced in aeons, complete with Chris Rea-like guitar solo. It’s a mighty opening brace, but it’s also the point at which the plot starts to lose its way.

The effortful ‘Moment Of Surrender’, at over seven minutes long, is a strained ballad with gospel aspirations that suffers badly from delusions of grandeur and cod-religious preaching. The similarly grandiose ‘Unknown Caller’ also thuds along under swathes of worthy lyrical emptiness: “On the edge of the known universe where I wanted to be/ I had driven to the scene of the accident / And I sat there waiting for me”. Quite.

There’s momentary respite on the Steve Lillywhite-produced ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight’, a Joshua Tree-era standard where, despite his cringe-inducing falsetto, Bono gets almost charmingly self-deprecating: “The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear”. He repeats the trick on the otherwise banal ‘Stand Up Comedy’, with the line “Napoleon is in high heels/ Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas”.

But it’s the album’s latter half where the big ideas fail to reach constructive conclusions, and where production appears to plug the staggering dearth of melody. First off, the clumsy and hasty lead single ‘Get On Your Boots’ is easily amongst U2’s most forgettable moments. However, far more aggravating is the presumed notion that the wearisome, Eno-centric filler ‘FEZ – Being Born’ is somehow overtly experimental. It’s certainly spacey and dreamy but it’s completely without context on this album. And, with Bono’s relentless “ohs” becoming more emphatic and, as a consequence, less meaningful, it raises more awkward questions than it wants to ask. ‘White As Snow’ takes a traditional melody into pleasantly explorative territory, with some success; but ‘Breathe’, the other Lillywhite production on here, is a messy piece of stadium-rock melodrama, which only menaces the listener into indifference.

Finally, ‘Cedars Of Lebanon’, a semi-spoken, Lanois-produced mood piece with obliquely political aspirations, falls prey to some woeful rhyming-dictionary couplets – who will fail to wince each time they hear “Now I’ve got a head like a lit cigarette/ Unholy clouds reflecting in a minaret”? As an album closer, it leaves something of a sour taste.

There’s no doubting that U2 devotees will still lap this album up and that it’ll fly off supermarket shelves like freshly baked doughnuts. But after a four-year wait, is this really the best record the world’s biggest band can make? If No Line On The Horizon had been the ‘difficult’ follow-up to an NME-hyped band’s over-achieving debut, we’d be gleefully dismantling their atomic career and waiting for them to bomb. The truth is (and ‘Magnificent’ proves the will is still there), U2 need to take a “never mind the bollocks” approach and rediscover their knack for memorable, timeless classics. At least until then, there’s no end of filled stadiums on the horizon.
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unfortunately they don't like it ... :sad:

I already disagree with the reviewer, simply because I really like those lines from Unknown Caller. And the ones from Cedars. And based on the beach clip, I love Breathe. And I'm really excited for Fez and MOS. And I don't think Boots is forgettable. okay, I have some issues with this review :wink:

I'm curious to see whether the reviewer is right in the album being disjointed though. That would certainly be a valid criticism, though aren't others saying it's more cohesive...?
 
AtomicBono said:
I'm curious to see whether the reviewer is right in the album being disjointed though. That would certainly be a valid criticism, though aren't others saying it's more cohesive...?
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it goes against what most people are saying, for sure.
 
AtomicBono said:
guys I found a review!! all by myself!! :hyper:

http://www.state.ie/blog/review-u2-%E2%80%93-no-line-on-the-horizon/comment-page-1/



unfortunately they don't like it ... :sad:

I already disagree with the reviewer, simply because I really like those lines from Unknown Caller. And the ones from Cedars. And based on the beach clip, I love Breathe. And I'm really excited for Fez and MOS. And I don't think Boots is forgettable. okay, I have some issues with this review :wink:

I'm curious to see whether the reviewer is right in the album being disjointed though. That would certainly be a valid criticism, though aren't others saying it's more cohesive...?
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It is so obviously that this article is written by someone who hates U2!!!!And this kind of preview sholud removed from forum:) All we know that new album is gonna be awesome and please all haters go away!!!!!!
This new album will be so huge and will shut up all U2 haters.
 
It's interesting how you can tell someone hates U2 by their reviews. :wink:

I think it's funny that the writer of this review contradicts almost all the other reviewers.

Most others said NLOTH was a coherent album, this reviewer is calling it "disjointed".

Funnily enough, there's also talk about "too many writers/producers", when, in fact, they just had Eno/Lanois this time, other than with Bomb, that really had too many cooks.
 
^ Hasn't this review been posted before or did the BBC just copy it from another source? Somehow all the reviews seem to be recycled in some form or the other. :scratch:
 
It is a good review, and I'm sure they're well aware of it, he's pretty close to the band, having gone to school with them.
He's a very good journalist and I always listen to what he has to say.
 
I love the bit about Bono's text and the fact that he compares the album to how Zooropa should have sounded excites me.

Normally I'd be cynical about people so close to the band reviewing their music (i.e. Messrs Fanning, Deevoy or Rees) but somehow, given the real closeness of McCormick to Bono, it seems ok with him.
 
Ah, so the only properly negative review so far is from a magazine that was/is an abysmal failure...

State is basically the Irish version of pitchfork - a load of hipsters trying to prove their coolness to each other by producing the most wanky "journalism" they can muster...The magazine was utter dross, I was so glad to see it fold a couple of months ago. Unfortunately it seems they are keeping an online presence but I doubt it will last long either given the general crap-ness of their offering...
 
MrBTH said:
Ah, so the only properly negative review so far is from a magazine that was/is an abysmal failure...

State is basically the Irish version of pitchfork - a load of hipsters trying to prove their coolness to each other by producing the most wanky "journalism" they can muster...The magazine was utter dross, I was so glad to see it fold a couple of months ago. Unfortunately it seems they are keeping an online presence but I doubt it will last long either given the general crap-ness of their offering...
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I totally agree with this. They have stopped printing the mag and are just keeping it online. They had no idea where they were going with it. They started out in the early editions with unsigned, cool indie bands on the cover and ended up trying to be ironic by putting ABBA on the cover....bizarre.

wouldn't read anything into this.
 
As expected, media in my country is starting the U2 bashing. I can't remember having read anything positive about the band from our national media in recent years. They just cannot hide their hate for the band, therefore the album has to be bad. One reviewer says GOBY is the only good song on the album. Man, I want to go live somewhere else. :doh:
 
again, so a negative review comes up and it's dismissed because the source "is/was an abysmal failure". why?
"because they're almost like pitchfork."

oh, okay.
 
MrBTH said:
Ah, so the only properly negative review so far is from a magazine that was/is an abysmal failure...

State is basically the Irish version of pitchfork - a load of hipsters trying to prove their coolness to each other by producing the most wanky "journalism" they can muster...The magazine was utter dross, I was so glad to see it fold a couple of months ago. Unfortunately it seems they are keeping an online presence but I doubt it will last long either given the general crap-ness of their offering...
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Pitchfork is better, it at least knows what it likes

States seems to just know what it hates...U2
 
That's definitely my favorite review that I've read so far. Even though it comes from someone close to the band it's still balanced. I particularly like the second to last paragraph...it really pinpoints how I've been expecting to feel about this album in terms of sensing the band wanting to experiment again but at the same time wanting to reach as wide an audience as possible. Guess I'll find out if that's my impression soon enough.
 
If you are apologizing for a new thread, it probably means you shouldn't have started it. We've been talking about this for over 24 hours in other threads.
 
Zoomerang96 said:
again, so a negative review comes up and it's dismissed because the source "is/was an abysmal failure". why?
"because they're almost like pitchfork."

oh, okay.
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Try reading the magazine mate, oh whoops, you cant since it was so unbelievably shite that it folded after four or five issues...

Oh and by the way, I'm completely prepared to accept that NLOTH will get bad reviews - it's all subjective after all. I'm not dismissing this guys views, he's perfectly entitled to them. But it's fairly typical of State to allow someone who is obviously fighting back a gag reflex (even as he admits that NLOTH and Magnificent are decent songs) to write their masthead review of the album. Most reputable sources will at least try and find someone with a little more perspective and balance when it comes to such an important release... Equally i think it's ridiculous that Neil McCormack gets to review the album as he's clearly not someone who can be objective about U2...
 
MrBTH said:
Try reading the magazine mate, oh whoops, you cant since it was so unbelievably shite that it folded after four or five issues...

Oh and by the way, I'm completely prepared to accept that NLOTH will get bad reviews - it's all subjective after all. I'm not dismissing this guys views, he's perfectly entitled to them. But it's fairly typical of State to allow someone who is obviously fighting back a gag reflex (even as he admits that NLOTH and Magnificent are decent songs) to write their masthead review of the album. Most reputable sources will at least try and find someone with a little more perspective and balance when it comes to such an important release... Equally i think it's ridiculous that Neil McCormack gets to review the album as he's clearly not someone who can be objective about U2...
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Dunno, I kinda liked State. Now Hot Press goes from bad to worse but State had something to it. Without the first issue of State, for example, I would never have bothered to listen to The Jimmy Cake's superb album from last year, Spectre and Crown (the best of 2008 for me) or possibly ever been curious enough to listen to Death Cab for Cutie. I think that everything one reads should be taken with a pinch of salt and State read like a bunch of young journalists (and a couple of older editors) trying to carve a new niche in a very small market. They tried valiantly and at times got it very right. So what if they got it wrong sometimes, but at least they tried, and I for one was very sorry to see the magazine go to the wall.

As far as the review goes, I agree with you - it strikes me as a review written with a bit of a chip on the writer's shoulder, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, I can't believe that anyone could review any album without listening to it for a month, so I'm never sure what to make of these reviews. I think people should read them for fun, to get clues about the sound, but I don't think people should get too hot under the collar when the reviews are bad/good. The album is what it is to our own ears; it's not for everyone clearly.

Oh, and the mentions of Pitchfork got me thinking about another wildly over- or over-rated record, depending on which review you read; is Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion worth 9.6 out of 10 (from Pitchfork) or 3.5 out of 5 (Rolling Stone)? I tell you what, I'll decide, but it's growing on me.
 
PookaMacP said:
Dunno, I kinda liked State.
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Ok ok maybe I'm being a little harsh - I personally didn't like the style of writing and the "hipster" vibe of State - i guess that doesn't mean that it was as shitty as I'm making it out to be...!

As for AC's Merriweather Post Pavilion? For once I'm in complete agreement with Pitchfork... Its one of the best, most cohesive and uplifting records I've heard in a long long time...
 
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