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With 'Horizon,' U2 maintain that the album is a complete art form

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Big emotions, big sound

Bono is one of those rare singers who can make feelings jump through his skin. Whether it's an economical gesture or a grand wail, he conveys his lyrics as if electrically prodded. His performances are a turn, but they're inseparable from his role as U2's front man. The part calls for big emotions, big ideas - and a sound big enough to support them.

They're all there in full-scale Technicolor on U2's new album, No Line On The Horizon, their first in nearly five years. To call it the band's greatest album since Achtung Baby is reasonable enough. But it also just might be the greatest record U2 have made thus far.

'Horizon' comes off as effortless and seamless as The Joshua Tree, which seemed to spill out of U2

I've listened to No Line On The Horizon three times now - and once was enough for me to place it alongside U2's towering achievements.

While it's no secret that the band labored over the album - marathon recording session in various cities, and some aborted sessions with producer Rick Rubin (hopefully, we'll hear those outtakes one day on an expanded collection; or perhaps somebody will leak them), the results hardly sound labored; in fact, the album comes off as effortless and seamless, as free-flowing as The Joshua Tree, which seemed to spill right out of them.

The super-deluxe set (above)

Working with their most trusted trio of confidants and collaborators, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite (Eno and Lanois even share songwriting and playing credits), U2 have created a work of atmospheric eroticism and sustained emotional substance. Overall, it's probably the dirtiest sounding album they've ever made, but it's one in which all of the elements they've succeeded in - jarring guitars clashing with surrealistic electronica over tight pop and big anthems - come together with supreme grace and majesty.

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