No Line On The Horizon review

I'll begin by saying that in the past couple years, after the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb hype died out and U2 began to just show up occasionally to do a duet with Green Day or Mary J. Blige, I have been less impressed with some of the new songs. "The Saints Are Coming" was a joke of a song that was only good to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims from mindless fans like me who bought it anyway. And "Windows in the Skies" or whatever it was called was alright but I honestly haven't listened to it since I bought the album of 18 songs that I already have on four other U2 compilation cds. And then there was U23D which was an awesome cinematic experience, but musically was about as boring as any other U2 featured documentary since 2003 has been (which basically means it was 90% songs that I can hear at any time of the day or night on the radio instead of some of the great classic songs that you don't often hear live anymore). Then, about a month or so ago the new single was released. Get On Your Boots gave me flashbacks to the first time I heard the song Vertigo. I liked the excitement I felt when hearing it but I didn't like the song at all. Kind of lame, nothing special, etc. Needless to say, I bought this album, mind you as a HUGE U2 fan, but with somewhat low expectations and even some hesitation and anxiety that my days as a fan of all and everything U2 might be at an end.

I am indeed happy to say that this is not the case :)

No Line On The Horizon, after one listen, has already proven itself to me as a good album. I don't know at this point whether it will become a favorite but I will say that with HTDAAB and ATYCLB, other than a couple songs, I only pretended to love them in the beginning before they slowly grew on me as an album. The difference with NLOTH is that each and every song fits prefectly into place in context of the album. HTDAAB was an incredible album in this manner but the difference between it and NLOTH is that I still hate the song Vertigo and I do not think it belongs on that or anyother album for that matter. In contrast, Get On Your Boots fits perfectly on NLOTH in context of the album and I actually find myself enjoying the song.

Enough comparison. As a standalone album, ignoring this band's amazing musical history, NLOTH is a very good album with enough catchy songs that I immediately enjoy. Specifically I enjoy the songs "Magnificent", "White As Snow", and "Breathe". There were others but those are the three that I remember for certain after just one listen that I especially enjoyed. Unfortunately I don't think the album measures up to the status of Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree or even Pop for that matter*. And with that, my rating for NLOTH is 4/5 stars.

*=Unlike a large majority of people, I really like the album Pop, I give it 5 out of 5 stars. Therefore me thinking Pop is better than NLOTH is not a commentary on NLOTH being so low in quality that it doesn't even match up to Pop.