No Line on the Horizon

I recently downloaded U2's latest album, 'No Line on the Horizon.' I'm not sure what convinced me to do it. Based on the initial single, 'Get on Your Boots', and my overall disappointment with their last two albums, I was not too excited about this one.

But, I got it. And, I think it's good. Really good. The best thing they've done in years. I like it far better than their last two. The songs stick with me. The sound is rich and interesting. I felt like the last two albums were considered 'good' (or even 'great') based too much on nostalgia. "Wow, the guitars chime again! Wow, Bono is yearning again instead of being ironic! Wow, I remember 1989!" No one wanted to talk about how the songs themselves just didn't have nearly the emotional or aesthetic force of anything from 'Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby.' Put more simply, where were the pretty melodies to go with all that pretty U2 chiming and Bono yearning? Just...not quite there.

Now, this is one man's opinion. I think many people genuinely loved those albums. So, maybe it is a matter of taste. But, I also think that the overall sound of the latest album is a marked improvement. There's interesting, satisfying, 'meaty' things going on. 'All That You Can't Leave Behind,' I finally realized, just always struck me as artificial sounding. And not in the good 'Achtung Baby' or 'Zooropa' sort of artificiality, where it was intended, where they were creating this bizarre carnival world. More like the artificiality of vending machine food for dinner. It was a shell, a casing. The sound was just flat. Same, or similar, problem with 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.' Don't get me wrong, stripped down can sound great. There's nothing like the acoustic guitars on 'The Bends' for instance. But, ATYCLB was stripped down not to the nourishing core of a song--real, acoustic sounds and raw voices--but to a few electronic tinklings lacking texture. I'm putting it harshly. But, that encapsulates my problem with the record.

The newest album does not suffer from that. The fills, the flourishes, the textures are great and actually stick with you as much as anything in the songs. The melodies are good, too. The title track alone has a catchier melody, in my opinion, than anything in the last two albums.

This is not a great album like 'Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby.' I realize that. But...it's much closer than this great band has been in a long time. And I'm happy to see them back near the summit.