Both sources give "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" 4 stars. Here's what they had to say.

Rolling Stone:

Halfway through the excellent new U2 album, Bono announces, "I like the sound of my own voice." Well-said, lad; well-said. Ever since U2 started making noise in Dublin several hundred bloody Sundays ago, Bono has grooved to the sound of his own gargantuan rockness. Ego, shmego -- this is one rock-star madman who should never scale down his epic ambitions. As the old Zen proverb goes, you will find no reasonable men on the tops of great mountains, and U2's brilliance is their refusal to be reasonable. U2 were a drag in the 1990s, when they were trying to be cool, ironic hipsters. Feh! Nobody wants a skinny Santa, and for damn sure nobody wants a hipster Bono. We want him over the top, playing with unforgettable fire. We want him to sing in Latin or feed the world or play Jesus to the lepers in his head. We want him to be Bono. Nobody else is even remotely qualified.
U2 bring that old-school, wide-awake fervor to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The last time we heard from them, All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2 were auditioning for the job of the World's Biggest Rock & Roll Band. They trimmed the Euro-techno pomp, sped up the tempos and let the Edge define the songs with his revitalized guitar. Well, they got the job.

On Atomic Bomb, they're not auditioning anymore. This is grandiose music from grandiose men, sweatlessly confident in the execution of their duties. Hardly any of the eleven songs break the five-minute mark or stray from the punchy formula of All That You Can't Leave Behind. They've gotten over their midcareer anxiety about whether they're cool enough. Now, they just hand it to the Edge and let it rip.

During the course of Atomic Bomb, you will be urged to ponder death ("Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"), birth ("Original of the Species"), God ("Yahweh"), love ("A Man and a Woman"), war ("Love and Peace or Else") and peace ("City of Blinding Lights"), which barely gives you time to ponder whether the bassist has been listening to Interpol. "Vertigo" sets the pace, a thirty-second ad jingle blown up to three great minutes, with a riff nicked from Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots." "City of Blinding Lights" begins with a long Edge guitar intro, building into a bittersweet lament. "Yahweh" continues a U2 tradition, the album-closing chitchat with the Lord. It's too long and too slow, but that's part of the tradition.

Like all U2 albums, Atomic Bomb has false steps, experimental bathroom breaks and moments when the lofty ambitions crash into the nearest wall. As America staggers punch-drunk into another four-year moment we can't get out of, it would be a real pleasure if the political tunes had any depth. (How long? How long must we sing this song?) But Bono scores a direct hit on "One Step Closer," an intimate ballad about his father's death from cancer in 2001; "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is the song U2 did at the funeral. When Bono sings, "You're the reason why I have the operas in me," his grief and his grandiosity seem to come from the same place in his heart. It's a reminder that what makes U2 so big isn't really their clever ideas, or even their intelligence -- it's the warmth that all too few rock stars have any idea how to turn into music.

ROB SHEFFIELD
(Posted dic 09, 2004)




And All Music Guide:

Ever since the beginning of their career, U2 had a sense of purpose and played on a larger scale than their peers, so when they stumbled with the knowing rocktronica fusion of 1997's Pop — the lone critical and commercial flop in their catalog — it was enough to shake the perception held among fans and critics, perhaps even among the group itself, that the band was predestined to always be the world's biggest and best rock & roll band. Following that brief, jarring stumble, U2 got back to where they once belonged with All That You Can't Leave Behind, returning to the big-hearted anthems of their '80s work. It was a confident, cinematic album that played to their strengths, winning back the allegiance of wary fans and critics, who were eager to once again bestow the title of the world's biggest and best band upon the band, but all that praise didn't acknowledge a strange fact about the album: it was a conservative affair. After grandly taking risks for the better part of a decade, U2 curbed their sense of adventure, consciously stripping away the irony that marked every one of their albums since 1991's Achtung Baby, and returning to the big, earnest sound and sensibility of their classic '80s work. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the long-awaited 2004 sequel to ATYCLB, proves that this retreat was no mere fling: the band is committed to turning back the clock and acting like the '90s never happened.

Essentially, U2 are trying to revirginize themselves, to erase their wild flirtation with dance clubs and postmodernism so they can return to the time they were the social conscience of rock music. Gone are the heavy dance beats, gone are the multiple synthesizers, gone are the dense soundscapes that marked their '90s albums, but U2 are so concerned with recreating their past that they don't know where to stop peeling away the layers. They've overcorrected for their perceived sins, scaling back their sound so far that they have shed the murky sense of mystery that gave The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree an otherworldly allure. That atmospheric cloud has been replaced with a clean, sharp production, gilded in guitars and anchored with straight-ahead, unhurried rhythms that never quite push the songs forward. This crisp production lacks the small sonic shadings that gave ATYCLB some depth, and leaves How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb showcasing U2 at their simplest, playing direct, straight-ahead rock with little subtlety and shading in the production, performance, or lyrics. Sometimes, this works to the band's detriment, since it can reveal how familiar the Edge's guitar has grown or how buffoonish Bono's affectations have become (worst offender: the overdubbed "hola!" that answers the "hello" in the chorus of "Vertigo"). But the stark production can also be an advantage, since the band still sounds large and powerful. U2 still are expert craftsman, capable of creating records with huge melodic and sonic hooks, of which there are many on HTDAAB, including songs as reassuring as the slyly soulful "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" and the soaring "City of Blinding Rights," or the pile-driving "All Because of You." Make no mistake, these are all the ingredients that make How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb a very good U2 record, but what keeps it from reaching the heights of greatness is that it feels too constrained and calculated, too concerned with finding purpose in the past instead of bravely heading into the future. It's a minor but important detail that may not matter to most listeners, since the record does sound good when it's playing, but this conservatism is what keeps HTDAAB earthbound and prevents it from standing alongside War, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby as one of the group's finest efforts.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

I just like it, moslty.

Esp. Love And Peace Or Else...

It's taking some time to grow on me, surprisingly. I've always been blown away by every U2 record at first listen (except ZOOROPA) and hearing all the praise recently for atomic bomb got me wetting my pants in anticipation. But so far I haven't gotten too many chills. The lyrics are powerful but I don't find anything about this record to be fresh...and maybe that's they way they wanted it. What I do like is that I'm having some "Unforgettable fire" flashbacks during some of the record (City of Blinding Lights). Overall, it's very All that you can't leave behind/Achtung baby-ish.
So far these are the tracks I've warmed up to:

Vertigo
City of Blinding Lights
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Man and a Woman
Love And Peace Or Else
All Because Of You (this, so far is actually my favorite track)

I still love these men and I hope they do music when they have to use walkers!

purplegypsy said:

What's the overall tone of the record? Is it fun and heavy like Vertigo?

GangstaFam said:

sassyb asked me the same type of question and it's hard to answer. there are some songs that make me feel very "Bullet the blue sky-ish" excited (i love to rock out when they do this song live) and there are some others that remind me of "Kite." it's very mixed. there's a lot of guitar energy but I don't feel any "fun" aside from vertigo...but that's just me...and i'm disapointed that I feel this way being a big fan.

Interesting reviews. I am holding out hearing the album till its official release, but I will admit that Vertigo has grown on me.

purplegypsy said:

Does it feel topical and political like their 80's stuff or more personal and emotional like their 90's stuff?

while the critical world goes about bashing zooropa, pop and the majority of their 90's material in order to praise the new stuff, i sit and wish they'd have never caved in to the pressure to be the "world's" best. i wish they would have continued to be "their" best.

i love all that you can't leave behind...really i do. quite honestly, though, i think it pails in comparison to the intricacies of zooropa, pop, and achtung, baby. those three releases...not to mention their work as "the passengers" with brian eno...showed a band that had forward mobility in mind. the u2 of the 90's was a band that wrote their own history and decided to begin a whole new chapter. the problem with history is when people don't like what they see, they change it.

achtung, baby and zoo tv celebrated the complete irony of celebrity...the overindulgences, the grandiosity, the bullshit. zooropa was that byproduct. you can only fight the maliase until you become part of it. pop came out and it was kind of like all the twist and turns of achtung, baby and zooropa made sense through this new record. i think they were experiencing some very new things and these all culminated in this new direction. i always saw those albums as great statements about a band that was searching for a balance and trying to find its place in such a crazy existence.

all that you can't leave behind, albeit a wonderful rock album, just seems to say "ok, we're back where we started at." to that i just wanna say "well, what the fuck did you learn if you're back at your starting point?" i had hoped that this new record...especially with vertigo sounding the way it does...would have shown us the medium ground; shown us where all that irony took them. who knows...maybe those 3 albums were a rock band's midlife fling. its always the short fling that delivers the most excitement, i guess.

i'm sure this new cd is fantastic. i'm sure i'll love it...i love all the stuff this band has done. even october. i was just kind of holding onto the possibility that the experiments would continue and twists would keep coming. i loved the fact that the u2 of the 90's was totally unpredictable...i mean, for fuck's sake they came out of a lemon on the pop tour! you just never knew what you were gonna get with those guys from 91-98. that's what i miss the most.

I will sum this album up in one word.

Hopeful.

VERY firm in being hopeful. Yet lyrically very direct without being too flowery. Musically it is all that you hear in every review. That mix of old and new.

Where old work was amazing in putting together soft and rash songs, this album blends the songs itself. I like it. Lots.

SassyBritches said:

As much as I love their 80's and current stuff, it'll be tough for them to top what they did in the 90's. Achtung Baby!, Zooropa and Pop are my favorites as well. And I thought Zooropa was well received by the press at the time. I thought it was more the longtime fans that had a problem with it. But a lot of the recent reviews of their last 2 albums seem to think that whole decade was a mistake. I don't get it. People were eating that shit up at the time.

I think its good, but not as good as the last few albums (yes, Pop included).

It too "retro".

I want more Zoo Station, not more "Where the Streets Have no Name".

The stand out track is "Original Of The Species" in my eyes (or ears).

I find it interesting that critics bash U2 in the 90s, yet say Achtung baby is a classic. And of course it is. But it also came out in 1991!

i did hear the import bonus track, fast cars. its the same verse for about 3 minutes but it still rocks. i can see why it was left off the us version, though. its more than a little repetitive. if that's an outtake, though, i can't wait to hear what actually made the record!

SassyBritches said:

I'm excited to hear their cover of "Neon Lights" too. I love that song. It seems a bit of an odd selection at this stage of their career though. It'd be better suited as a b-side to Zooropa or Pop, don'tcha think?

So my brother calls me up last night, about 11:00, and I hear this music streaming in from the background. It sounds familiar, but I just can't quite place it. It was fucking U2!!! My brother works for the Fox News Network, and he was covering the opening of the Clinton Library. He's in there with like, 50 people, all checking out U2 soundchecking!!! Lucky bastard!!!

SassyBritches said:

maybe that's why they changed. perhaps they were feeling a little too predictable?



btw, i absolutely fucking LOVE this new album. hot damn! it's a tingler.

GangstaFam said:

WOW That's my fave on the album, I didn't make the connection that it's about his father. Incredible song!! I've had it on repeat for days now...



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[Edited 11/28/04 17:39pm]

i haven't heard the cd yet. i'm gonna buy it anyway 'cause i'm a u2 freak.

heybaby said:

You won't be disappointed.