BLITZ already heard U2's new album: know what No Line on the Horizon sounds like.
Spanish and portuguese journalists watched yesterday the premiere of U2's new album in Madrid.
More than a band, we know that U2 is a multinational when for the very first hearing of their new album we're conducted to a room in Universal Spain's HQ where 30 iberian journalists acommodate around a table.
On this table there are snacks and drinks, but it's clear that No Line on the Horizon, U2's new and awaited album, is the main dish of the matinee.
The 12th album in the irish's career open with the title-track: U2 in epic mode, with explosive chorus and some atmospheric moments.
After that, in the recent Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay tried to emulate U2, there's on this new No Line on the Horizon - where Brian Eno left his mark too - passages where seem to sound like Coldplay when trying to sound like U2. Something that doesn't maculate this band that firstly patented this idea of good-hearted epics.
The second song, Magnificent is a ballad that left a good impression on the journalists present. Asked to leave cells on a box at the entrance of the room, to prevent recordings, reporters accompanied the hearing with the lyrics of the songs. At the end, we're again asked to return those, but that didn't stopped us from note the emotional lyrics in Magnificent: "Only love, only love can leave such a mark / I was born to sing for you.", sings Bono, which through No Line on the Horizon risk frequent falsettos.
One of the new album's highlights, Magnificent is a strong candidate to next single and it seems to recover some spirituality from U2's early days combined with the vocation that the four of Dublin improved: rock stadiums.
Not even on purpose, Moment of Surrender is known by synthesizers that resemble organs of church, crossed with a soft electronic beat that does not threaten the calm of the song.
Also in the lyrics "Moment of Surrender" is introspective, with references to God, altars and... ATMs.
Unknown Caller coninues the quiet tone, with twitter of birds as intro and the outro "sunshine, sunshine" to set the tone for another song with reflective lyrics and dynamite chorus.
With I'll Go Crazy If Don't Go Crazy Tonight some of the strong points of this album are repeated: Bono's falsettos, the guitar - unmistakable and idiosyncratic - from The Edge and a chorus with everything to take songs where U2 inhabits: the top of the world.
The already known first single, Get on Your Boots, with its "garage" boot is perhaps the most atipical song in the record and shows a hip sway away from the first half of the album. The heavier riff is mainteined in Stand Up Comedy, whose lyrics point again to the spiritual: "God is life and love is evolution's very best day," was heard in the offices of Universal Madrid.
Then comes the duo Fez-Being Born; after an instrumental piece with electronic beats where, in the distance, you can hear "let me in the sound" from the single Get on Your Boots; starts a song relatively atmospheric with references to the Bay of Cadiz, the Atlantic Ocean and the sun of Africa, gifted with less explicit chorus than the other songs on the album.
Equally calm, but closer to folk and acoustic is White as Snow, with melancholic lyrics where Bono sings "If only a heart could be white as snow."
Almost ending, Breathe is a new bet on the tougher riffs, like Stand Up Comedy or Get on Your Boots. Bono, in his turn, delivers that which is, possibily the most descriptive lyrics in the record, in a curious style that is less sung and most recited, almost "dylanesque"
No Line on the Horizon leaves with Cedars of Lebanon, song perhaps too discrete to close the album with an exclamation point. "This shitty world sometimes produces a rose" is, equally, one of the most strange lyrics in No Line on the Horizon.
Between rockers with strong choruses, some heavy riffs and almost psychedelic (see Queens of the Stone Age) and intimate songs, often devoided of the usual power of U2's ballads, comes No Line on the Horizon in the end. At the exit, opinions were divided but most journalists were excited with U2's return. As for future concerts to promote No Line nothing was, as yet, announced.
nice one, Bono 
