UK Uncut Magazine HTDAAB Preview!!

[Herco]

And now Love And Peace

 

[RademR]

wow, SYCMIOYO, the song I had the most fear about (along with "Crumbs"), everyone is saying really good things about it. Thanks for doing this, Jim!

 

[Jim]

LOVE AND PEACE OR ELSE
U2's own Middle East peace initiative, apparently, with lyrics telling the "daughters of Zion" and "sons of Abraham" to "lay down your guns". Musically there's so much happening: it starts with a rumbling, half-hearted sound like distant gunfire before a raw blues riff takes over, The Edge eventually pusing it into the realm of heavy metal. Then it ends with some martial drumming from Larry Mullen and spiraling guitar, as Bono repeatedly intones, "Where is the love?"

 

[Herco]

Jim

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN

Written for Bono's father and sung at his funeral. Like a companion for 'One', it starts slow and hauntingly but builds dramatically, until Bono breaks into a shimering falsetto: "It's you when I look into the mirror". It ends in a crescendo of visceral emotion before being stripped back down to a heartbeat. Both uplifting and heart-rendering, and despite the personal nature of the subject the effect is universal.

This song is getting quite the descriptions so far isn't it?

 

[RademR]

LOVE AND PEACE OR ELSE
Musically there's so much happening: it starts with a rumbling, half-hearted sound like distant gunfire before a raw blues riff takes over, The Edge eventually pusing it into the realm of heavy metal.

 

[SkeeK]

shiiit. this is sounding good.

 

[maxpouliot]

getting even more excited

 

[Jim]

CITY OF BLINDING LIGHTS
At almost six minutes, the longest track on the album. It opens with guitar effects and surprisingly, tinkling keyboard melody before the rhythm builds into something more insistent, beautiful but slightly sinister. Blessed with one of those great, whoosing, "whoa-whoa-whoa" choruses and an irrepressible hook. ("Oh you look so beautiful tonight in the city of blinding lights"), much of the rest of the lyric ("the more you see the less you kno") has a similarly Zen quality to George Harrison's "The Inner Light".

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

It is, isn't it..this seems like it will be an album with many good songs!

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

CITY OF BLINDING LIGHTS
At almost six minutes, the longest track on the album. It opens with guitar effects and surprisingly, tinkling keyboard melody before the rhythm builds into something more insistent, beautiful but slightly sinister. Blessed with one of those great, whoosing, "whoa-whoa-whoa" choruses and an irrepressible hook. ("Oh you look so beautiful tonight in the city of blinding lights"), much of the rest of the lyric ("the more you see the less you kno") has a similarly Zen quality to George Harrison's "The Inner Light".

Now THIS sounds interesting!

 

[Herco]

AWESOME!!!



I need this album NOW

 

[maxpouliot]

Great review so far

 

[Jim]

ALL BECAUSE OF YOU

With a guitar riff somewhere between "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and The Who's "Substitute", the most '60s sounding U2 since "Gloria", complete with freak-out guitar coda. And is the touch of self mockery as Bono sings, "I like the sound of my own voice, I didn't give anyone else a choice"?

 

[maxpouliot]

"I like the sound of my own voice, I didn't give anyone else a choice"? [/B]

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

As a huge fan of late 60s rock, let me:

 

[RademR]

definetly. I might be wrong, so someone can correct me if I am, but after I read the Uncut Legends issue, it seems it is a magazine that isn't pro-u2 or against them, they do a pretty good job of just giving their opinions.

 

[maxpouliot]

anybody still have the q magazine track by trck, i want to make one file with all the reviews

can't seem to find the thread on the forums

 

[Jim]

A MAN AND A WOMAN

Opens with acoustic guitar and vibrating bass, then adds strings and becomes a floating ballad with a luminous, summery chorus. "I could never understand the mysterious distance between a man and a woman," Bono croons a song that sounds as though it should be a theme to an epic Hollywood movie.

 

[RademR]

anybody still have the q magazine track by trck, i want to make one file with all the reviews

can't seem to find the thread on the forums

http://forum.interference.com/t98084.html

 

[Jim]

CRUMBS FROM YOUR TABLE

A gentle opening with a strummed acoustic guitar and chiming harmonies gives way to a tyipical mid-tempo U2 riff. The subject matter is weighty and lines such as "would you deny for others what you demand yourself?" and "where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die" would appear to have been inspired by Bono's campaign against third world debt.

 

[maxpouliot]

http://forum.interference.com/t98084.html

thanks

 

[Drive]

Jim...Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...

 

[Jim]

ONE STEP CLOSER

Starts with an ethereal wash of sound and develops into a mellow rock ballad with a wasted, late-night vocal. The moody production recalls Lanois (although it isn't) and there's touch of the Mercury Rev school of Americana, even before the pedal steel comes in. "I'm on an island in a busy intersection", Bono sings at one point in a moody lyric that finds him stranded "around the corner from anything that's real". About as intimate as U2 gets.

 

[RademR]

A Man and a Woman is described a little differently than the Q review, they call it a "floating ballad". Very interesting though, good things. Thanks again JIM!

 

[AussieU2fanman]

Jim Thanks alot man! And the rest, if you will!

 

[maxpouliot]

I think this is my favorite of the 3 reviews so far (NME, Q, Uncut)

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

Yeah, cheers Jim

 

[Jim]

ORIGINAL OF THE SPECIES

If George Martin produced U2, it might sound something like this, with it's "I Am The Walrus" strings and Beatlesque ambience. "Baby slow down, please stay a child in your heart," Bono sings in an intriguing lyric.

 

[maxpouliot]

thanks Jim!