achtung y'all
The Fly
THE BIG BANG
That post-irony purple patch shows no sign of ending
4 out of 5
Is there a rock band as universally liked as U2? Everybody has time for U2. Through a combination of humility, self-depreciation, the suspicion that their hearts are in the right place, globetrotting charity work and an enviable songbook, their popularity remains intact. 2004's new indie contenders lift their sound from old U2 LP's (The Departure and 1981's October, for example) and even musicians fabled for their anti-rock stance can name their favourite off the Joshua Tree.
Dispatched to report on the Miami Winter Music Conference a couple of years ago, this writer was surprised to find proceedings aborted one evening while a dozen club runners, promoters and DJs decamped to watch the first night of the Elevation Tour in Fort Lauderdale. There, hardened dance commandos punched the air to New Year's Day and welled up during The Sweetest Thing.
U2 have never taken their audience for granted. Unlike, say, The Cure or Nick Cave, they at least endeavour to make each LP just the once. Interviewed by film-maker and sometime collaborator Wim Wenders in the 1992 issue of U2's official magazine Propaganda, Bono considered his band's longevity. "It's at the point where people say to us we can't do this or that because we're U2, (and) that makes us want to do it even more. From (our) past and what's being done today, we are trying to build a future." Then he did a very Bono name-drop. "William Burroughs said, You cut up the past to find the future."
William Burroughs would surely have approved of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. While never going as far as actually reheating former glories, here U2 have effectively sampled themselves. It's a very U2 record. Talking up 2000's Beautiful Day, The Edge explained he had revisited his "Coca-Cola riff" - by which he meant it was his classic trademark, not that it made your teeth hurt - after three albums in denial. The Coca-Cola riff makes another appearance here, along with an arsenal of guitar noises that bring to mind a particularly impatient boy with a new box of indoor fireworks: there's tricks going off all over the place. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own sends a single repeated note ringing through digital delay. City Of Blinding Lights piles on the slide and distortion. All Because Of You features a heavily manhandled acoustic guitar. It's The Edge who makes this record: embellishing the so-so Yahweh until it becomes something more interesting. His riff on lead-off single Vertigo was beefy enough to convince Radio 1 tastemaker Zane Lowe to playlist the band, after a decade of strange abstinence from the station.
There are many highlights. Vertigo will remain exhilarating until someone can finally work out where U2 have pinched the melody from. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own complements the great Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of with a revision in subject: it's a lament for Bono's recently deceased father. Original Of The Species and All Because Of You will make strong singles. The casbah-vibed closing - and UK-only - track Fast Cars is a thrilling curio: offbeat without sacrificing it's tune at the conceptual altar.
Bono's lyrics continue to be an impenetrable hotchpotch of allegory, humanist egotism and Christian longing. There's nothing as direct as One here, and plenty of U2 fans will remember from before: the rain is still poisoned, the bullets still rip the sky and a brown-eyed girl is still moping about somewhere (though, on Miracle Drug, we do learn that freedom "has a scent like the top of a newborn baby's head"). But Crumbs From Your Table, where the singer is reportedly railing against the Ugandan Aids crisis, never quite comes together as a memorable tune.
It's a small gripe. Speaking to Q last month, Bono explained that U2's continuing motivation was "not becoming crap like everyone else does".
With their 11th studio album, they've succeeded in not becoming crap quite admirably.
Essential track: Original Of The Species
That post-irony purple patch shows no sign of ending
4 out of 5
Is there a rock band as universally liked as U2? Everybody has time for U2. Through a combination of humility, self-depreciation, the suspicion that their hearts are in the right place, globetrotting charity work and an enviable songbook, their popularity remains intact. 2004's new indie contenders lift their sound from old U2 LP's (The Departure and 1981's October, for example) and even musicians fabled for their anti-rock stance can name their favourite off the Joshua Tree.
Dispatched to report on the Miami Winter Music Conference a couple of years ago, this writer was surprised to find proceedings aborted one evening while a dozen club runners, promoters and DJs decamped to watch the first night of the Elevation Tour in Fort Lauderdale. There, hardened dance commandos punched the air to New Year's Day and welled up during The Sweetest Thing.
U2 have never taken their audience for granted. Unlike, say, The Cure or Nick Cave, they at least endeavour to make each LP just the once. Interviewed by film-maker and sometime collaborator Wim Wenders in the 1992 issue of U2's official magazine Propaganda, Bono considered his band's longevity. "It's at the point where people say to us we can't do this or that because we're U2, (and) that makes us want to do it even more. From (our) past and what's being done today, we are trying to build a future." Then he did a very Bono name-drop. "William Burroughs said, You cut up the past to find the future."
William Burroughs would surely have approved of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. While never going as far as actually reheating former glories, here U2 have effectively sampled themselves. It's a very U2 record. Talking up 2000's Beautiful Day, The Edge explained he had revisited his "Coca-Cola riff" - by which he meant it was his classic trademark, not that it made your teeth hurt - after three albums in denial. The Coca-Cola riff makes another appearance here, along with an arsenal of guitar noises that bring to mind a particularly impatient boy with a new box of indoor fireworks: there's tricks going off all over the place. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own sends a single repeated note ringing through digital delay. City Of Blinding Lights piles on the slide and distortion. All Because Of You features a heavily manhandled acoustic guitar. It's The Edge who makes this record: embellishing the so-so Yahweh until it becomes something more interesting. His riff on lead-off single Vertigo was beefy enough to convince Radio 1 tastemaker Zane Lowe to playlist the band, after a decade of strange abstinence from the station.
There are many highlights. Vertigo will remain exhilarating until someone can finally work out where U2 have pinched the melody from. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own complements the great Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of with a revision in subject: it's a lament for Bono's recently deceased father. Original Of The Species and All Because Of You will make strong singles. The casbah-vibed closing - and UK-only - track Fast Cars is a thrilling curio: offbeat without sacrificing it's tune at the conceptual altar.
Bono's lyrics continue to be an impenetrable hotchpotch of allegory, humanist egotism and Christian longing. There's nothing as direct as One here, and plenty of U2 fans will remember from before: the rain is still poisoned, the bullets still rip the sky and a brown-eyed girl is still moping about somewhere (though, on Miracle Drug, we do learn that freedom "has a scent like the top of a newborn baby's head"). But Crumbs From Your Table, where the singer is reportedly railing against the Ugandan Aids crisis, never quite comes together as a memorable tune.
It's a small gripe. Speaking to Q last month, Bono explained that U2's continuing motivation was "not becoming crap like everyone else does".
With their 11th studio album, they've succeeded in not becoming crap quite admirably.
Essential track: Original Of The Species
The Joshua Tree is better! Imo
