No Line on the Horizon – no tunes on the album?

Ok the title might be a bit harsh – but it’s been a 5 year weight since How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and the hype surrounding this new album has been through the roof – loads of ad slots on BBC1. Bono has been telling everyone this is their best album yet. This is a first impression after a couple of listens. And I am well aware that I didn’t like Cold play’s Viva la Vida the first time I heard it. So it is possible that the album will grow on me. Thanks to the Guardian we can all listen to it early.

The launch singles for the last three albums tell an important story:

Achtung Baby – The Fly ( amazing single – great album)

Zooropa – Numb (pretty good single – ok album)

Pop – Dischoteque (useless single – useless album)

All that we can’t leave behind – Beautiful Day (excellent single album)

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb – Vertigo (excellent single excellent album)

No line on the Horizon – Sexy Boots (useless single….

No line on the Horizon – a very bland opening track – give me “Where the Streets have no name” as an album opener any day.

Magnificent – the most normal sounding song. But it feels like it they have done this song better before on Achtung Baby.

Sexy boots – This is a B side track at best.

Stand up comedian – ok this is the most catchy song so far – Edge doing some funky riff – its kind of U2 meets Red Hot Chilli Peppers – with a funky bass line, and Bono doing some falsetto. The lyrics seems a bit contrived – but hey you can’t have everything.

I’ll go crazy if I don’t go crazy tonight – you know this is going to be rubbish from the title – the lyrics are as poor as the title suggests.

Breathe – maybe this is a grower but it sounds a little monotonous to me.

White as Snow – was hoping for a song like Grace or Original of the Species from the title but alas no…

Cedars of Lebanon – I was hoping for a song with the beauty and hymn like simplicity of of Yahweh – but I get Bono doing a kind of rap / beat poet thing and a terrible dischordant chorus.

So my first impressions are not good. I might need to go and console myself listening to the Joshua Tree for a while remembering the past glories. How the mighty have fallen…. I hate giving bad reviews (almost as much as i hate receiving them …) This would probably be a pretty ok album if it wasn’t by u2 or hadn’t just been preceded by two first rate albums. I will try the headphone test next – listening to an album in the immersive experience of a pair of headphones may make all the difference … watch this space for another review later…