2008 Woodie Awards
U2 rockets to greatness with an explosive bomb
Nicole Dellasanta
Issue date: 12/7/04 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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U2 has finally found what they're looking for.
After a four-year hiatus from their last multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning album, 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, the world's most famous Irish quartet have exploded back into music's mainstream with their much-anticipated How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
What elevates Bomb from most other U2 albums, save for 1987's The Joshua Tree, unmistakably the greatest of the band's 11 studio albums, is the unique sound that U2 has finally unearthed after an extensive 28-year career. Though many fans and critics hailed All That You Can't Leave Behind as a "return" to U2's classic sounds of melodic, hymn-like rock-and-roll from their disappointing electronic experiments of the 1990s, Bomb reaches back further to the soulful depths of Joshua Tree and combines unforgettable melodies with an undertone of edgy, pure rock-and-roll.
The album is not driven entirely by frontman Bono's powerful, soulful vocals; the energy force behind Bomb's polished strength and admirable appeal is guitarist The Edge's screaming riffs that on some songs come as close to hard rock as U2 has ever gotten. Combine that with music's solidest rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., and you've got a set of 12 songs that is exactly what U2 fans-and U2-have been looking for.
Wasting no time, the album's rock-based tone is immediately set on "Vertigo," the album's raw, energetic first track and its first released single. From Larry's opening drumstick count to Bono telling Edge to "Turn it up loud, captain," the control of the album is placed within The Edge's swift hands. Bono continues to prove himself one of music's greatest contemporary lyricists with simple but ambiguous metaphors that have you in an underground club one minute and on the edge of humanity the next: "Lights go down, it's dark / The jungle is your head / Can't rule your heart / A feeling so much stronger than / A thought..." On "Miracle Drug," Bono's deft lyrics and soaring vocals combine with trippy, swirling guitars to become Bono's ongoing plea for a cure for AIDS: "Of science and the human heart / There is no limit / There is no failure here sweetheart / Just when you quit..."
After a four-year hiatus from their last multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning album, 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, the world's most famous Irish quartet have exploded back into music's mainstream with their much-anticipated How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
What elevates Bomb from most other U2 albums, save for 1987's The Joshua Tree, unmistakably the greatest of the band's 11 studio albums, is the unique sound that U2 has finally unearthed after an extensive 28-year career. Though many fans and critics hailed All That You Can't Leave Behind as a "return" to U2's classic sounds of melodic, hymn-like rock-and-roll from their disappointing electronic experiments of the 1990s, Bomb reaches back further to the soulful depths of Joshua Tree and combines unforgettable melodies with an undertone of edgy, pure rock-and-roll.
The album is not driven entirely by frontman Bono's powerful, soulful vocals; the energy force behind Bomb's polished strength and admirable appeal is guitarist The Edge's screaming riffs that on some songs come as close to hard rock as U2 has ever gotten. Combine that with music's solidest rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., and you've got a set of 12 songs that is exactly what U2 fans-and U2-have been looking for.
Wasting no time, the album's rock-based tone is immediately set on "Vertigo," the album's raw, energetic first track and its first released single. From Larry's opening drumstick count to Bono telling Edge to "Turn it up loud, captain," the control of the album is placed within The Edge's swift hands. Bono continues to prove himself one of music's greatest contemporary lyricists with simple but ambiguous metaphors that have you in an underground club one minute and on the edge of humanity the next: "Lights go down, it's dark / The jungle is your head / Can't rule your heart / A feeling so much stronger than / A thought..." On "Miracle Drug," Bono's deft lyrics and soaring vocals combine with trippy, swirling guitars to become Bono's ongoing plea for a cure for AIDS: "Of science and the human heart / There is no limit / There is no failure here sweetheart / Just when you quit..."