I’ve been enjoying the first few listens to No Line on the Horizon and it has been fun. I managed to secure the poster and Griff the dog seems to at least like the poster!
As I expected, U2 have gone to another frontier with their music. Yes it is still them but they have kept growing. They number among the few bands/musicians who keep offering something refreshingly new each album. Others that come to mind are/were The Beatles and David Bowie. Some like Bruce Springsteen (and please understand, I am not complaining!) have taken lyric writing to new heights and at times matched them with new sounds, but basically, there is a well-trod style of music on offer. And others like The Rolling Stones have never moved on musically from their better days in the 60’s and very early 70’s. But U2 they just keep on getting better. Remember to listen to this music up loud!
The collaboration with producers Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois has also made it to a number of song-writing credits, and these number among the best tracks.
Here are my initial impressions song by song :
No Line on the Horizon: A welcome return to some of the Euro-style sounds of the brilliant Zooropa. I always thought that that sound was something special and it is great to see its return in many of these songs. Here’s an interesting thought and theological challenge – is Bono suggesting that the girl is the Spirit and that the Spirit puts no lines on the horizon – no distinctions, and changes everyday for us? I’ve always struggled with the line that God never changes if it means that we try to be prescriptive about how God can or cannot act. I admire God’s ability to meet me up close or far away, being there believing in me when I’m doing what I should and when I’m wallowing in what I shouldn’t.
Magnificent: Bono and Edge’s lyrics exploring the theological theme of love/God leaving a mark, even a scar, is a great reflection on the call on us to be faithful despite the inevitable wounds we will get if we are getting following Jesus right. Best line: “This foolishness [the cross?] can leave a heart black and blue, only love…can leave such a mark, but only love…can heal such a scar.”
Moment of Surrender: A mellow beat with more theological richness: “It’s not if I believe in love, but if love believes in me.” This a great antidote to the evangelical overemphasis on us having to do something to be right with God. Surrender is a great U2 theme from their earliest days and well-explored here in one of the album's best tracks.
Unknown Caller: “Cease to speak that I may speak, shush now.” My initial favourite song – beautiful guitar, great singing and something very special in the ending... Turn it up loud, follow the words, hear the call to ‘shush’ and let God speak, and then… an organ warming up to Edge’s distinctive simple guitar playing…a recognition perhaps that that’s what we’ve been getting over the years, God speaking through the distinctive U2 sound.
I’ll go crazy if I don’t do crazy tonight: I haven’t found my way into this song yet. It has too much of the sound of All that you can’t leave behind in it, or Crumbs from your table.
As I expected, U2 have gone to another frontier with their music. Yes it is still them but they have kept growing. They number among the few bands/musicians who keep offering something refreshingly new each album. Others that come to mind are/were The Beatles and David Bowie. Some like Bruce Springsteen (and please understand, I am not complaining!) have taken lyric writing to new heights and at times matched them with new sounds, but basically, there is a well-trod style of music on offer. And others like The Rolling Stones have never moved on musically from their better days in the 60’s and very early 70’s. But U2 they just keep on getting better. Remember to listen to this music up loud!
The collaboration with producers Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois has also made it to a number of song-writing credits, and these number among the best tracks.
Here are my initial impressions song by song :
No Line on the Horizon: A welcome return to some of the Euro-style sounds of the brilliant Zooropa. I always thought that that sound was something special and it is great to see its return in many of these songs. Here’s an interesting thought and theological challenge – is Bono suggesting that the girl is the Spirit and that the Spirit puts no lines on the horizon – no distinctions, and changes everyday for us? I’ve always struggled with the line that God never changes if it means that we try to be prescriptive about how God can or cannot act. I admire God’s ability to meet me up close or far away, being there believing in me when I’m doing what I should and when I’m wallowing in what I shouldn’t.
Magnificent: Bono and Edge’s lyrics exploring the theological theme of love/God leaving a mark, even a scar, is a great reflection on the call on us to be faithful despite the inevitable wounds we will get if we are getting following Jesus right. Best line: “This foolishness [the cross?] can leave a heart black and blue, only love…can leave such a mark, but only love…can heal such a scar.”
Moment of Surrender: A mellow beat with more theological richness: “It’s not if I believe in love, but if love believes in me.” This a great antidote to the evangelical overemphasis on us having to do something to be right with God. Surrender is a great U2 theme from their earliest days and well-explored here in one of the album's best tracks.
Unknown Caller: “Cease to speak that I may speak, shush now.” My initial favourite song – beautiful guitar, great singing and something very special in the ending... Turn it up loud, follow the words, hear the call to ‘shush’ and let God speak, and then… an organ warming up to Edge’s distinctive simple guitar playing…a recognition perhaps that that’s what we’ve been getting over the years, God speaking through the distinctive U2 sound.
I’ll go crazy if I don’t do crazy tonight: I haven’t found my way into this song yet. It has too much of the sound of All that you can’t leave behind in it, or Crumbs from your table.
Get On Your Boots: lovely Edge guitar and vocals. The first single, a wonderful video and the catchy song of the album serving to open the doors to a new audience just like The Fly, Discotheque, Elevation & Vertigo. Actually I think that if you put all of these songs together they kind of work out to be the same. A nice point though: that men stuff up the world (submarines and gasoline) and the greed and war escalates, and its time for the women to take over – get on your sexy boots!
Stand up Comedy: A grand Led Zeppelin-style opening, great music and a wonderful call to get in the frame and do something about standing up for love – of the faith hope and love Jesus variety. The line "God is love, and love is evolutions best day" is a thoughtful no-lines-need-to-divide contribution to the endless and mindless creation vs evolution debate that seems to absorb modernism. Bono’s self-depreciating line: “Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas.” is a bit of fun, but also a truism - Napoleon was short, Bono is short, come to think of it, so am I! But I like the call Bono makes to soul rockin’ people to come on stand up (say Yes) and then sit down (lay down) for God’s love.
Fez-Being Born – named after the city where the early recordings of the album were made starts calmly with the distant cry ‘Let me in the Sound’ and then follows with some more of that lively Euro-style beat reminiscent of Kraftwerk’s great Autobahn, with a hint of U2’s New Year’s Day, before turning into something quite new – the voices together and birth. I wonder if this should have been the first track – it reminds me of the impact Zoo Station had when I first listened to Achtung Baby – a new sound – the stretch out into something almost out of reach like a high note Bono has to be in the right mood to hit. This reaching out for what seems ungraspable is part of U2's genius - musically they go there but so too they do with their lyrics. There is a poetic simplicity to the words of Fez, and this song is for me the albums highlight.
White as Snow: an unusual song from U2 – commandeering an old folk melody and finding new words. It is quite special – faith, doubt and the realisation of the ‘lamb as white as snow.’
Breathe: Musically still to grow on me, but I love the line: “I’ve found grace inside a sound, I found grace it’s all that I found, and I can breathe, breathe now.”
Cedars of Lebanon: moody, thoughtful, and the boys sing well together again.
No Line on the Horizon 2: ends as it starts.
Stand up Comedy: A grand Led Zeppelin-style opening, great music and a wonderful call to get in the frame and do something about standing up for love – of the faith hope and love Jesus variety. The line "God is love, and love is evolutions best day" is a thoughtful no-lines-need-to-divide contribution to the endless and mindless creation vs evolution debate that seems to absorb modernism. Bono’s self-depreciating line: “Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas.” is a bit of fun, but also a truism - Napoleon was short, Bono is short, come to think of it, so am I! But I like the call Bono makes to soul rockin’ people to come on stand up (say Yes) and then sit down (lay down) for God’s love.
Fez-Being Born – named after the city where the early recordings of the album were made starts calmly with the distant cry ‘Let me in the Sound’ and then follows with some more of that lively Euro-style beat reminiscent of Kraftwerk’s great Autobahn, with a hint of U2’s New Year’s Day, before turning into something quite new – the voices together and birth. I wonder if this should have been the first track – it reminds me of the impact Zoo Station had when I first listened to Achtung Baby – a new sound – the stretch out into something almost out of reach like a high note Bono has to be in the right mood to hit. This reaching out for what seems ungraspable is part of U2's genius - musically they go there but so too they do with their lyrics. There is a poetic simplicity to the words of Fez, and this song is for me the albums highlight.
White as Snow: an unusual song from U2 – commandeering an old folk melody and finding new words. It is quite special – faith, doubt and the realisation of the ‘lamb as white as snow.’
Breathe: Musically still to grow on me, but I love the line: “I’ve found grace inside a sound, I found grace it’s all that I found, and I can breathe, breathe now.”
Cedars of Lebanon: moody, thoughtful, and the boys sing well together again.
No Line on the Horizon 2: ends as it starts.
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