MusicRadar

Can U2 still cut it? Maybe...

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7. Stand-Up Comedy

Another fun-loving rocker like the one before but this is distinctly '70s-inspired. The Edge has said his meeting with Jimmy Page for the It Might Get Loud film sparked his work on this song. The Zeppelin-flavoured riff is a highlight, but a forgettable chorus doesn't raise the song as a whole to the same standard.

A reportedly epic gestation period in the studios before completion doesn't show - it sounds almost too throwaway for all its funk and bluster, especially compared with the songs that follow.

8. Fez - Being Born

This is an interesting one - with Eno's paws all over it. Unsurprisingly for its title the influence of recording in Morocco (in an old Riad hotel) and very much apparent in the ambience of the first part before an abrupt end to break into Being Born's powerful Clayton-heavy groove.

This is the sound of a freewheeling U2, seemingly spurred on by the ever-experimental Eno. Indeed, the former Roxy Music man sounds like he's very much in the band on this. The melodies are unpredictable and the melding with electronics is almost the fruition of what they might have been aiming for in the Zooropa era. "A speeding head / a speeding heart" sings Bono, while guitars chime and fuzz and effects surge the music forwards.

Why don't they let go like this more often?

9. White As Snow

White As Snow shows how much this veteran band can still surprise

This may just be the standout song on the whole album - but it's a very different U2 to what you might expect. White As Snow's musical arrangement is based loosely on an ancient hymn; O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. The hymn has been covered by Enya and Belle And Sebastian amongst others, but Bono's lyrical inspiration is from the perspective of a soldier's mind in his dying moments.

The lyrics are far more ambiguous than that may imply ("As boys we would go hunting in the woods / To sleep the night shooting out the stars / Now the wolves are every passing stranger..") while his vocal performance is the kind of confessional, stripped-down Bono we rarely hear.

Edge's odd-tempo and picked electric and acoustic guitars add to the powerful mood-led by the vocal with a cinematic build before coming back down. It really shows how much this veteran band can still surprise and impress in equal measure.

10. Breathe

Brian Eno claims Breath is "the most U2" song the band have ever recorded

Eno claims this is "the most U2" song the band have ever recorded. He should know. Larry Mullen Jnr gets a drum intro before the Edge jumps in with satisfying overdrive crunch. Bono's stream of consciousness vocal approach work much better here than on Get On Your Boots but Breathe's chorus is big and unashamedly aimed at an enormodome crowd.

"Everyday I have to find the courage to walk out into the street with arms out / got a love you can't defeat".

U2's everyman-rock is the stick the critics often use to beat them with but although many other bands try, few can inject this kind of spirit and passion into stadium rock.

11. Cedars Of Lebanon

Like Love Is Blindness - the closing track on Achtung Baby - U2 choose to close proceedings with a slice of darkness. This time it's almost a 'film noire' atmosphere created with arpeggiated guitars and an incessant, but fitting drum part. It's subtly discordant and finds Bono in the third person again, now from the perspective of a jaded war reporter in, of course, Lebanon:

"Spent the night trying to meet a deadline / squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline". We know how he feels but there's something refreshingly atypical and poignant about the sound of the band here compared to the more commercial songs they're best known for.

MusicRadar's verdict?

Go easy on yourself, Bono. It would have been a very tall order for this to be U2's greatest album but it frequently showcases a band who are very far from becoming irrelevant.

A number of No Line On The Horizon songs make for a deeper, darker listen than 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb while the album's two weakest moments are arguably the most throwaway and pop-driven - Get On Your Boots and Stand-Up Comedy.

What's most interesting is how well the partnership with Eno and Lanois sounds here on their songs. The strongest songs are those where the influence is tangible, when before the band's experiments with electronic sounds on Pop and Zooropa Eno were sometimes forced and awkward.

The most intriguing moments here are where the Eno and Lanois team seem to be leading the band into new areas with their input as both musicians and producers, while U2's signature elements sound revitalised by added new soundscapes that fit into the sound to create state of the art pop.

Ultimately, No LIne On The Horizon is an impressive combination of the traditional and the future.

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