Rolling Stone 5 Star Review of NLOTH

For the big album reviews, Rolling Stone lines up their man David Fricke. He recently gave the GNR album Chinese Democracy a solid going over. Here's some of how he describes U2's No Line on the Horizon.

'"I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up," Bono declares early on this album, in a song called "Magnificent." He does it in an oddly low register, a heated hush just above the shimmer of the Edge's guitar and the iron-horse roll of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. Bono is soon up in thin air with those familiar rodeo yells, on his way to the chorus, which ends with him just singing the word "magnificent," repeating it with relish, stretching the syllables."

A happy lead in then...

"But he does it not in self-congratulation, more like wonder and respect, as if in middle age, on his band's 11th studio album, he still can't believe his gift — and luck. Bono knows he was born with a good weapon for making the right kind of trouble: the clean gleam and rocket's arc of that voice. "It was one dull morning/I woke the world with bawling," he boasted in "Out of Control," written by Bono on his 18th birthday and issued on U2's Irish debut EP."

A hint of a critque knowing all about Bono...

He is still singing about singing, all over No Line on the Horizon, U2's first album in nearly five years and their best, in its textural exploration and tenacious melodic grip, since 1991's Achtung Baby. "Shout for joy if you get the chance," Bono commands, in a text-message cadence and drill sergeant's bark, in "Unknown Caller." He leads by example in the ham-with-wry pop of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" — "Listen for me/I'll be shouting/Shouting to the darkness" — then demands his piece of the din in the glam-fuzz shindig "Get on Your Boots": "Let me in the sound!...Meet me in the sound!" God, guilt, love, sin, terrorism and transcendence — Bono juggles them all here, with the usual cracks at his own hubris. ("Stand up to rock stars," he warns in "Stand Up Comedy." "Be careful of small men with big ideas.")

And there you have it the best album since Achtung Baby and 5 stars with it!.

Full Article here

NLOTH better than Passengers

U2 Drummer Larry Mullen was interviewed by Sean O'Hagan (and the rest of U2) for the Guardian newspaper.

Larry is U2's biggest self critic so it's pleasing to hear:

'The work we did in Fez was the most joyous and liberating part of the whole album process. It was what I had always imagined being in U2 would be about: just playing music for the joy of it with no real end in sight.'

So it's better than Passengers Original Soundtracks 1 then...

U2 Grammys: What they wore?

"Irish rockers U2 opened the 51st Annual Grammy Awards with a ripping rendition of new single  "Get On Your Boots." The Edge sported the Larry the Cable Guy look with a plaid short-sleeved shirt; Larry wearing a black T-Shirt with a large white heart design on the front and a plus sign in the middle; Adam elegantly dressed in a leather blazer and dressy shirt; and Bono with his traditional large-soled Bono-shoes and glitter-face designed black shirt and black blazer.

The Lyrics to "Get On Your Boots"  were flashed on the screen behind U2.

Bono did take off his glasses towards the end of the song - for those who were wondering."

What is it with everybody so interested in Bono's glasses at the moment?

Sauce with (edits by moi).

Get On Your Boots Video U2 Released at Last

Finally, here's U2's official video for hot new single 'Get On Your Boots'

Alexandre Courtes directed this visual punch in the face of a of a video that tjumps and turns with color, energon and abstract ideas. Courtes has previously worked with U2 on videos from the last album and Seven nation Army for The White Stripes

Watch the Video steamed from U2.Com. It's very simialr in style to the the design art for Oasis Dig Out Your album and video for The Shock of the Lightning but better shot and Daliesque

Here's the lyrics to Get On Your Boots.

The Edge has said of the song "Edge has been talking to Hot Press about the writing of 'Get On Your Boots'.

"We came up with 'Sexy Boots', and everyone got very excited by the idea and we pursued it, but in the end we just thought it was a bit limiting, and so we took it in another direction. That's the way it often happens with U2."

An unfinished video of the song leaked all over the internet before U2 managment took legal action to take it down"

"You might have seen we've been removing links to the rogue copy of the 'Boots' video in the last 24 hours. It's not just U2.Com, it's being taken down from everywhere on the web.

Word is that everyone was pretty fed up about an unfinished bootleg leaking out before the production team had finished their work."