There is a murmur going around that U2 are about to drop a new album. I have just heard this today. Apparently there is a lengthy article about in the newest Rolling Stones – but I haven’t looked at mine yet. All I can say is that it is about time that a new album comes out. Granted, there was an album out in the past four years – U218 Singles, which is their greatest hits, but for a new album of new work to come, out this is great.
Being a long standing fan of the Irish rockers, I have to say that their Vertigo album let me down. Of course there was the essential U2 sound – sweeping guitar intros by The Edge, nearly tribal sounding drums from Mullen, and the resounding and reverberating voice of Bono – but at the surface it just did not sound like an U2 album… I suppose it was too pop and streamlined for the masses to appeal to my inner rocker. That, or I have just became jaded over the way rock was dissipating and diluting itself. Either way, I was disappointed over the whole Vertigo thing.
But I digress. The new album – as far as I have heard – is at this point titled “No Line on the Horizon”. But knowing the organic way that all U2 albums have been put together, it very well may change at any time. From the whispers, U2 has returned to its roots of pushing the volume and depth of their music – going back to “Actung Baby” and “Pop” experimental speed and to their “Joshua Tree” grandness.
With all the buzz around it, I truly hope that when the album comes out in early March, the buzz isn’t hype and that U2 has, indeed, returned to their former greatness and glory in rock.
*A slip of mine: I totally forgot to mention the bass lines of the one and only Adam Clayton – the genius behind many of U2′s hooks….my bad.
