ZOOTVTOURist
Refugee
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2005
- Messages
- 1,700
This thread does not intend to go into details about the different tunes or an album review (there are a lot of those threads around now
), but to look at NLOTh from a broader point of view, to see it on a wider horizon, to share opinions about this. My feeling towards the album is, that U2 and their music making producers really reached for and entered a level, where they have never been.
You can look at this fact from the musical side: The compositions are really complex, with a legion of sounds and instruments (not only Moroccan drums, but even classical ones as Cello, Strings, French Horn) fixed to exact the timing, where they are thought to have the desired effect. There are walls of sounds to be built, while you find also the moments of near silence. There are breaks and harmony changes, that surprise you, push you out of the songs – only to draw you in a second later. U2 really are seducing us this time. And: You can actually hear every band member crystal clear – with the feeling, that Larry, Adam and The Edge are nearly always doing something, are always spot-on. Plus: Every song, though puzzled together from the different jams, was given space. Every tune has air to breathe, to make instrumental parts possible, even to let the guitar in its various colours 'sing' alone to the tune. And every track has a real ending, no tune has been faded out –so U2 create even a kind of live atmosphere. Listen to the album alone in the dark – and you known, what I mean ...
Another perspecive is the way of songwriting and singing, that Bono delivers. The point, what lyrics he does sing - but also, how he does this. Bono is giving it all, singing high volume, singing with timbre, with falsetto – even giving us a laugh, while belting out his "craziness tonight". There is the full throttle, reflective, medidative voice – and the shouter, the classic story-teller and the crowd-teaser. there are the different personae, the different characters, Bono successfully creates by 'being' them in the songs – so successful, that we become them, too. You get the picture, this singer knows, what he wants to sing, he's found his voice, he's born to sing for us (as he even admits in one tune).
My conclusion can only be: Such a perfection, such an overwhelming and challenging, even kind of cathartic and esoteric-religious effect on me, U2 only have achieved on very rare occasions in the past. Always then, when they really have created a masterpiece (which by the way has nothing to do with a commercial masterpiece, or the kind of PR-bla-bla surrounding every U2 album ...).
While in my ears, NLOTH is far better than the beautiful, but somehow unfinished 'POP', I will go further: NLOTH might be even 'better' than 'Achtung Baby' and en par with 'The Joshua Tree' – which we really can judge after a certain time, after the live versions, that lead to another level of understanding for the studio album, too. 'Better' does not mean, I'd bash 'Achtung Baby' now – which I still estimate as a revolutionary masterpiece, too. But I do see NLOTH a touch more broader, more musicality, more mood, more feeling(s), more emotional landscapes. U2 still haven't found, what they are looking for, are still curious, courageous and hungry as artists, are still on their journey towards now musical lands – and thankfully don't see any horizon there yet. Wow – what a gift, a classic album with courage for new soundscapes and the 'old' spirit of U2 at the same time. The question, many here raised after HTDAAB, the band has answered as artists: They took their time and created a new masterpiece. Congratulations!
), but to look at NLOTh from a broader point of view, to see it on a wider horizon, to share opinions about this. My feeling towards the album is, that U2 and their music making producers really reached for and entered a level, where they have never been. You can look at this fact from the musical side: The compositions are really complex, with a legion of sounds and instruments (not only Moroccan drums, but even classical ones as Cello, Strings, French Horn) fixed to exact the timing, where they are thought to have the desired effect. There are walls of sounds to be built, while you find also the moments of near silence. There are breaks and harmony changes, that surprise you, push you out of the songs – only to draw you in a second later. U2 really are seducing us this time. And: You can actually hear every band member crystal clear – with the feeling, that Larry, Adam and The Edge are nearly always doing something, are always spot-on. Plus: Every song, though puzzled together from the different jams, was given space. Every tune has air to breathe, to make instrumental parts possible, even to let the guitar in its various colours 'sing' alone to the tune. And every track has a real ending, no tune has been faded out –so U2 create even a kind of live atmosphere. Listen to the album alone in the dark – and you known, what I mean ...
Another perspecive is the way of songwriting and singing, that Bono delivers. The point, what lyrics he does sing - but also, how he does this. Bono is giving it all, singing high volume, singing with timbre, with falsetto – even giving us a laugh, while belting out his "craziness tonight". There is the full throttle, reflective, medidative voice – and the shouter, the classic story-teller and the crowd-teaser. there are the different personae, the different characters, Bono successfully creates by 'being' them in the songs – so successful, that we become them, too. You get the picture, this singer knows, what he wants to sing, he's found his voice, he's born to sing for us (as he even admits in one tune).
My conclusion can only be: Such a perfection, such an overwhelming and challenging, even kind of cathartic and esoteric-religious effect on me, U2 only have achieved on very rare occasions in the past. Always then, when they really have created a masterpiece (which by the way has nothing to do with a commercial masterpiece, or the kind of PR-bla-bla surrounding every U2 album ...).
While in my ears, NLOTH is far better than the beautiful, but somehow unfinished 'POP', I will go further: NLOTH might be even 'better' than 'Achtung Baby' and en par with 'The Joshua Tree' – which we really can judge after a certain time, after the live versions, that lead to another level of understanding for the studio album, too. 'Better' does not mean, I'd bash 'Achtung Baby' now – which I still estimate as a revolutionary masterpiece, too. But I do see NLOTH a touch more broader, more musicality, more mood, more feeling(s), more emotional landscapes. U2 still haven't found, what they are looking for, are still curious, courageous and hungry as artists, are still on their journey towards now musical lands – and thankfully don't see any horizon there yet. Wow – what a gift, a classic album with courage for new soundscapes and the 'old' spirit of U2 at the same time. The question, many here raised after HTDAAB, the band has answered as artists: They took their time and created a new masterpiece. Congratulations!
... and what do you think?
– and thanx for sharing your point of view ...
This is the Album I would love them to leave us with! It is all there wrapped up in a bow. Start Middle and perfect end. No fillers 
