With only a week left for the release of U2's 12th studio  album, I was lucky enough to hear it and am providing a review.  Keep in mind that I am a U2 fan and have been since 1979.  However, I have not drank the kool-aid of every release, every album, and every artistic decision they have made.  Larry Mullen Jr and company have scored the soundtrack to my life throughout the years, and now here we are again . . . a highly anticipated album with questions abound.  What gives with the eyeliner Bono in the Q magazine spread?  And we have heard you say before "this is the best ever" and "we are pushing the musical envelope" just prior to Zooropa (1993) and Pop (1997).  We all know how that went.  Let's just say how grateful we are that with All You Can't Leave Behind (2000), there was a sigh of relief that our favorite Irishmen returned to what inspired us in the first place.  Ok, enough history and discography, let's get down to the business of the review of No Line on the Horizon.

Here is the track list

#	Title	Lyrics	Music	Length
1.	"No Line on the Horizon"	Bono	U2, Eno, and Lanois	4:12
2.	"Magnificent"	Bono and Edge	U2, Eno, and Lanois	5:24
3.	"Moment of Surrender"	Bono	U2, Eno, and Lanois	7:24
4.	"Unknown Caller"	U2, Eno, and Lanois	U2, Eno, and Lanois	6:03
5.	"I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"	Bono	U2	4:14
6.	"Get on Your Boots"	Bono	U2	3:25
7.	"Stand Up Comedy"	Bono	U2	3:50
8.	"Fez – Being Born"	Bono	U2, Eno, and Lanois	5:17
9.	"White as Snow"	U2, with Eno and Lanois	Traditional, arranged by U2 with Eno and Lanois	4:41
10.	"Breathe"	Bono	U2	5:00
11.	"Cedars of Lebanon"	Bono	U2, Eno, and Lanois	4:13
53:43

   Let's start with "Get on Your Boots", the first single to be released.  Originally scheduled to be released 2/15 however it was on iTunes 1/19/09.  My initial reaction was "oh no, not another Zooropa", however after a weeks worth of hearing it on the radio, seeing the video on redWire, I am liking the dirtier riffs the Edge provides on this track.  I am not too sure I am feeling the lyrics though, "get on your boots"?  Why? Is it because the rest of the album will be crap and we will need boots on to wade through it? And "Rockets hit the funfair, Satan loves a bomb scare" and 2 verses later "I dont wanna talk about wars between nations"? Really? You're talking about it, you're not talking about it? Which is it?

   "No Line on the Horizon", the title track, conjures up memories of "Mysterious Ways" from the Achtung (1991) album.  From the drums, base line and guitars, it is almost like they loaded up the tracks from "Mysterious Ways" and Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno added some effects, a different chord progression, and laid over the new lyrics and wah-la, new title track.

   "Magnificent", hmmm . . . not sure about the synthesizers but one thing is for certain this one will take a while to grow on you. The distinctive Edge guitar is ever present but at this point as the lyric says "it's a joyful noise".

   "Moment of Surrender", same drum track as "So Cruel" from Achtung,  yet another track borrowing from '91 recordings.  This makes me wonder what was scrapped in the early part of these sessions.  And did they scramble to get this together? Is that why all the Achtung sounding tracks pulled from the archives? I would like to hear what was 'scrapped' . . .

   "Unknown Caller",  'force quit and move to trash', 'restart and re-boot', 'password . . .enter here'  sounds like a documentary song of how the recording process was . . .  a different sound for U2. 

   "I will go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight",  draws some very familiar comparisons to "Who's gonna ride your wild horses".  Ok, so do this . . . load up in the same play list this album and Achtung and shuffle the songs and see if the don't start sounding like each other.  Is this a collection of stuff that was re-tooled from those earlier recordings?  I like the theme of the lyrics though, sometimes it is necessary to cut loose now and then . . .

   "Stand Up Comedy",  this is probably the most non-U2 sounding song on the entire album, I can't help but think of Led Zeppelin, a more bluesy dirtier rock vibe that is a quite refreshing deviation.   The title versus the lyrics, is Love Comedy? Yeah, sometimes. This to me sounds like a completely new song.  Rock on!

   "FEZ-Being Born", this would be the theme song to a carnival in Underworld.  A dark, fun house theme, that is stitched with house-type beats and peppered with Edge guitar harmonies that sounds an awful lot like the Who's "Eminence Front" at times.  Hey, who doesn't like the Who?

   "White as Snow",  a very blues / country feel that conjures sounds like Johnny Cash or Eddy Arnold, with a heavy acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies that give nostalgic emotions.  You could say this would fit right in on Rattle and Hum.

   "Breathe",  I imagine Bono listening to John Lennon's Instant Kharma! when he wrote this.  I like the grungier guitars and chord progressions.  The rhythmic vocals of speech and song lends itself well to this recording.

   "Cedars of Lebanon",  by far my favorite track and instantly identifiable as a classic U2 song.  This song reaches into the depths of your soul and brings forth a surreal conscienceness leaving you contemplating the complexities of truth and conflict.  This compares to "Mothers of the disappeared" which is also a final track (and track 11) because of the serious nature of the subject matter.

In conclusion,  No Line On the Horizon is definately not U2's best work however it did not dip to the levels of Zooropa or Pop.  I can't say I am disappointed because we have a new U2 album, but I can say after All You Can't Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb I am a bit underwhelmed.  My initial thoughts are similar to Viva La Vida in that this will have to grow on you.  On a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being Joshua Tree and 1 being Zooropa, I would give it a 6 1/2.

You can hear it on U2.com, streaming live for members or on Myspace also streamed live.  Europe release date is 2.27.09 while the US release is scheduled for 3.3.09.