U2
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
(Interscope)
The Music Box's #7 album of 2004
First Appeared in The Music Box, December 2004, Volume 11, #12
Written by John Metzger
The reason that U2 has remained relevant for nearly 25 years is that it has refused to stay in one place for very long. The pursuit of satisfying artistic growth always has been at the forefront of the band’s collective consciousness, and from every new musical trend, U2 has mined enough inspiration to transform each of its endeavors into a boldly crafted and sometimes challenging leap forward. Indeed, over the course of its career, the ensemble has allowed few opportunities to experiment with its signature style to pass unheeded, and in its quest for perfection, it has scrapped completely the music captured at more than just a few recording sessions. The result has been a startling string of albums, each of which has sounded little like the one that preceded it, and although U2’s prior effort — the blockbuster All That You Can’t Leave Behind — was a return to the grandiose rock of it pre-’90s catalog, the group also found enough common ground with then-current hipsters Radiohead, Moby, Travis, and Coldplay to keep its songs sounding fresh.
On its latest release How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 takes another stab at returning to its past, and this time the Irish quartet succeeded in making it sound as if large portions of its stylistically scattered ’90s forays (and everything that revolved around them) never happened. Of course, the latest garage-rock revival could be credited with giving U2 the opportunity to begin anew without seeming out of touch with the record-buying public, and sprinkled throughout the collection are more than a few tutorials for The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Strokes to follow. Yet, it’s U2 itself that deserves the most praise for cleverly discovering the path that has led it away from its Euro-glazed ruminations. That’s not to say that the entirety of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is fully distanced from the last decade of the group’s career — the central riff of All Because of You is plucked from Achtung, Baby’s Even Better than the Real Thing; Miracle Drug shares a few key moments with Beautiful Day; and although Vertigo’s magic is significantly diluted by the song’s incarnation as a commercial jingle, it essentially is a cleaner, crisper variation on Pop’s dance-hall thunder. However, from the ringing harmonics of The Edge’s guitar to the thick, heavy bass provided by Adam Clayton, the album is far more of a return to the ’80s than All That You Can’t Leave Behind ever was.
Consequently, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is one of the most
diverse outings of U2’s distinguished career, though strangely enough, it also
is the band’s most risk-averse effort. The many allusions to With or Without
You that are tucked inside the collection’s 11 tracks make it an
inordinately safe endeavor — and that’s before one finds that the thunderous
stomp of I Will Follow or the cascading bombast of Where the Streets
Have No Name also have been etched firmly into the album’s DNA. Still, U2
doesn’t simply regurgitate its history, so much as it reformulates it, picking
and choosing specific ingredients — the atmospheric washes from The
Unforgettable Fire or the soul-searching spirituality of The Joshua Tree,
for example — and then reconstituting them in ways that allow the band to
reflect upon the entirety of its career. Lyrically, too, the ensemble rummages
through its usual array of themes: Its songs are about life, death, war, peace,
religion, sex, money, and politics, and all of them are enveloped within the
vague haze of a giant, "all you need is love" embrace. In the end, How to
Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is without question a transitional effort, one that
comes with more than its share of familiar overtures. If any band can make such
a thing sound essential, however, it undeniably is U2, and before long, the
twinges of disappointment that initially greet the listener give way to the warm
comfort that comes from rekindling a relationship with an old friend. 
48th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Album of the Year
48th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Song of the Year
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
48th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
48th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Rock Song
City of Blinding Lights
48th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Rock Album
47th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
Vertigo
47th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Rock Song
Vertigo
47th Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Short Form Music Video
Vertigo
Of Further Interest...
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
The Sounds - Living in America
Around the Web
GQ: How to Save the Music Industry by Paul McGuinness
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is available
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2004 The Music Box