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  1. So they're the same song just under different names. Well, that clears that up. It's Super City Mania and Miami again!!!



    This is from the information I had about a month ago; and it hasn't changed.

    No Line On The Horizon (4:14)
    Magnificent (5:23)
    Moment of Surrender (7:23)
    Unknown Caller (6:02)
    I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (4:13)
    Get On Your Boots (3:24)
    Stand Up Comedy (3:48)
    Fez - Being Born (5:14)
    White As Snow (4:39)
    Breathe (4:58)
    Cedars of Lebanon (4:13)


    Digipack: the album CD in a cardboard folded sleeve w/ a 36-page color booklet and fold-out poster, as well as a new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2, available as exclusive downloadable content."

    Magazine version: the album CD in a special 60-page soft cover magazine-style book as well as a new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2, available as exclusive downloadable content."

    Box Set: packaged in a special box, album CD in a cardboard folded sleeve w/ 36 page color booklet and fold out poster. Box also includes 60-page hard cover book plus an additional fold-out poster and a DVD of the new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2 in a slip case cover."
  2. Thanks, I think I'll get the magazine version it's only $3 more expensive than the one below it.

    Do you have to preorder these? Or will JB HI FI have them in stock?
  3. Originally posted by vanquish:Thanks, I think I'll get the magazine version it's only $3 more expensive than the one below it.

    Do you have to preorder these? Or will JB HI FI have them in stock?


    JB should have them. Always a good idea to ask first, if you're not sure.
  4. Originally posted by vanquish:Thanks, I think I'll get the magazine version it's only $3 more expensive than the one below it.

    Do you have to preorder these? Or will JB HI FI have them in stock?


    I believe JB will have them in stock, but not the day of release, only the standard cd according to their web site, the box & other versions will most likely be avaliable between the 3rd & 5th of March whilst the standard cd on the 27th, something like that anyway.

  5. NO! Line!
  6. Another fan-review:

    Without going into too many details, yeah, I have a friend from long ago that engineered the NY sessions last fall....I've mentioned this before. I don't want to say too much about him. We're starting to become close again and anyway he invited me to the city (NYC) for dinner and we met at the studio and he surprised me with a "want to hear the U2 album"?

    and of course I was like "HELL YEAH!!!".

    I did not ask too many questions, because I want to stay on his good side for buisness reasons. But let me say he played me about 2 minutes of each song, (which you could say is actually NOT hearing the whole record of course).
    But comparing with the WM clips.....wow.

    The songs are really good. I'm not willing to jump to "3rd masterpiece" because as I say, it was only 2 minutes each song. But it is really good.

    I tried to remember as much as possible, but let me say: it does at times remind me of Peter Gabriel, and as I've actually said before, Sting. But in a U2/Passengers way.
    I wonder about the writing credits, becase the Eno stamp is all over it.....Edge did not play all those keyboards......

    Anyway,
    NLOTH: reminds me of "Come Talk To Me" from Peter Gabriel.
    Awesome.

    Magnificent: UF with Morrocan drums.
    Awesome.

    MOS:
    slinky funk ballad; reminds me most of Sting's "Brand New Day Album"...
    Bono's vocal deliery is totally off the cuff.

    UC:
    Intro is the best since Streets....I almost teared up during it.....long intro, then the verse from the beach clip kicked in.... then he stopped it. Did not hear the Edge solo at the end.

    Crazy:
    A great tune as far as I can tell. Kind of like a SIAMYCGOO but with a nice funk groove. Way better than said previous tune.

    Boots:
    I still don't like it.


    SUC:
    the Zepplein riff is not on the WM clips.....it's a cool tune, but not my favorite.

    Fez:
    Passengers. Eno all ove the place; when it kicked in, my friend stoppped it...

    WAS:
    chilling, just like snow.
    the music fits the title perfectly, more so than any U2 song in the last 10 years.

    Breathe:
    unlikely intro....I wasn;t crazy about this from the beach clip, but it's shaped up nicely. I still don't like the groove, but must concede they did a great job with it.

    Cedars:
    only heard 30 seconds...not enough to comment, but seems cool.

    I'm pretty pumped for this album, but will refrain from any praise until we hear the whole thing.

    BTW, my friend is working with Lanois on his next project....will keep y'all posted.


    WM = Walmart by the way.
  7. HTDAAB leaked on saturday, maybe tomorrow and sunday will be THE weekend. I'm excited

    Boots is the turning point; the first half is upbeat and happy .......after Boots...dark.....
  8. 1st "official" review - Irish Independent Newspaper Friday 13th 2009

    They took their time, didn't they? It's been four years and three months since the last U2 studio album - the longest gap in the band's history. At times, this - their 12th - could have been called No Finish On The Horizon, such were the apparent difficulties and insecurities they faced when making it.

    Initially, Rick Rubin, the American producer who helped rejuvenate the careers of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, was seen as the one that could move the band into exciting new areas. But those sessions, from July 2006, didn't work out and they turned once more to trusted old friends, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite. The latter has worked on and off with the band since their debut album, Boy, the former pair from 1984's The Unforgettable Fire.

    Recording took place in Morocco, New York, London and their Hanover Quay studio in Dublin with up to 50 new songs recorded. They were still tinkering with songs, titles and sequences right up to Christmas, further fuelling online speculation that they were suffering creative paralysis and not confident enough to let go.

    And creative difficulties seemed all too apparent on early acquaintance with lead single, Get On Your Boots. "Is this it?" you could almost hear the punters say when the song was debuted on 2FM last month. Its insistent, fuzzy guitars were fine, although the nonsense lyrics were harder to stomach, but just where was the bold direction the band and assorted friends had been promising us?

    A bold change in direction will not be found on the album either. It won't wrong-foot the listener in the way that Achtung Baby or even Pop did. But suggestions that U2 had lost their mojo are just as unfounded - and unfair. No Line On The Horizon may not be a masterpiece, but it is unquestionably a very good, consistently strong collection that's every bit the match of their two huge selling albums of this decade, All that you can't leave behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Even Get On Your Boots proves to be a grower, working well when heard within the context of the album.

    Just shy of 54 minutes long, it's one of their lengthier efforts. And, of the 11 tracks, only two could be described as duds (more of which anon). That's not a bad strike rate by anybody's standards.

    It starts off strongly with the title track, a barnstorming stadium rock tune that could have come from the songwriting stable of Kings Of Leon. The young Southerners have supported U2 on the road, and that clearly has had an impact on Bono who sounds uncannily like that band's Caleb Followill in places. Imitation, flattery and all that...

    It's followed by one of the albums's standouts, the aptly titled Magnificent. This already sounds like a classic U2 song that combines disparate eras of the career in a hugely appealing way - War-meets-Zooropa, if you will. Even the most avowed U2-hater is likely to struggle to come up with reasons to dislike the Edge's irrestible guitars and muscular rhythm section. It's one of two songs featuring the keyboards of will.i.am and while the Black Eyed Peas' main man is hardly a distinct enough keys player to make you sit up and take notice, Eno's typically smart production takes all the elements and concocts the sort of epic five-minuter that's become his stock-in-trade. Let's just say one of his more recent "clients", Coldplay's Chris Martin, is likely to weep with envy when he hears it.

    No Line On The Horizon is, for the most part, an upbeat album. There are several euphoric moments and lots of allusions to redemption. Songs like Moment of Salvation [sic] - which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome - is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul", "God" and "fire". The atmospheric Unknown Caller is cut from the same cloth. Let's face it, it would hardly be a U2 album if Bono wasn't engaged by such themes - and if you're one of the many who finds this sort of stuff off-putting, much of the album simply won't work for you.

    There are plenty of songs that won't have such a divisive effect, however. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, for instance, is a massively uplifting number that's bound to be a live favourite when U2 take the show on the road this summer. There's humour too, as Bono, tongue firmly in cheek, notes: "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear." Never a truer word spoken, Bono.

    It's not the only self-deprecating moment on the album. Stand Up Comedy finds the frontman, who is given to wearing shoes with elevated soles, singing of "Napolean in high heels" before offering the killer line: "Be careful of small men with big ideas." The Edge's guitar playing is raw and dirty - it's got Queens of the Stone Age written all over it. But the song fails to captivate. It just seems a little too contrived.

    The album's most intriguing song is FEZ - Coming Home [sic], which is a triumph of Eno's yen for experimentalism over U2's big sound. (In fact, Eno and Lanois share songwriting credits on several tracks.) It was one of the first songs recorded - during sessions in the Moroccan city that gives the song its title - and it's a hint about what this album could have sounded like if the band had really thrown caution to the wind. Its electro-ambient intro features the sound of birds singing and the bustle of Moroccan life (it was apparently recorded in the outdoor courtyard of an ancient riad) and Bono referencing the "let me in the sound" line from Get On Your Boots, before it dissolves into a scattergun rock that shifts and slides into unexpected territory. The tempo changes are surprising and the song boasts a daring that the bulk of the other tracks, for all their merits, simply lack.

    As mentioned at the outset, a pair of songs fall some way short of the mark. One of them is Stand Up Comedy. The other is Breathe, which finds Bono in sem- spoken-word mode, although the song doesn't do enough to draw the listener in.

    The plaintive White As Snow has no such problem. One of the slower tracks on the album, its intro recalls Sigur Ros while, later, a French horn highlights the evocative lyrics. Closer Cedars Of Lebanon is the most overtly political song, and a real grower. Like many of its siblings on this album, its moody atmospheric texture recalls Achtung Baby-era U2. It's a downbeat song on which to conclude an album brimming with life and hope.

    No Line On The Horizon is unlikely to disappoint the band's multitudinous fanbase. They haven't reinvented themselves as they have suggested, but instead play to their strengths. Fledgling bands with stadium rock ambitions could certainly learn a thing or two from this album.

    After such a long and difficult gestation, the album feels like a triumph. It won't change the world, but it does give Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry a ticket for world domination once more. Just watch those sales figures roll in.

    Final rating 4 / 5
  9. Originally posted by nowiamthemaster:1st "official" review - Irish Independent Newspaper Friday 13th 2009


    No Line On The Horizon is, for the most part, an upbeat album. There are several euphoric moments and lots of allusions to redemption. Songs like Moment of Salvation [sic] - which, at more than seven minutes long, definitely outstays its welcome - is loaded with lyrics referencing "soul", "God" and "fire".


    Moment of Salvation??


  10. Hence the [sic] - means I know the spelling is wrong & that the original author made a mistake - doh!!


  11. OK, sorry about that, didn't realise that the (sic) was your comment.
  12. Great, the get the first proper reviews are in.

    Apparently the 4/5 means it's excellent, the Irish music press don't like U2 much apparently.

    Another review from the Irish Times: Also 4/5
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0213/1233867933895.html

    KEVIN COURTNEY

    U2 No line on the Horizon Mercury ****

    No one knows the line on horizon better than U2 – they’ve spent enough of their career gazing meaningfully in its direction. For their third studio album of the noughties, they decided to blur that line and let everything bleed into one vast wall of sound and twisted vision.


    U2 brought us to a comfort zone of sorts with the last two albums, but here they’re up for taking a few risks and chancing arms, legs and cojones on this big, brash embrace of an album. It’s not so much throwing their arms around the world as trying to crush it in a big, fuzzy bearhug.

    This is a record of twists and turns and death-defying loops, and anyone looking for a quick-fix anthem may be put off by the complexities on offer here. It’s U2’s prog rock album, so if you want to sing along, you’ll need to grab hold of your chin and pay close attention.

    Magnificent comes on like Blondie’s Atomic filtered through Bowie’s Heroes, and is the first of three songs that clock in at more than five minutes. The longest one, Moment of Surrender, sees Bono finding – as usual – redemption in the dirt. Though the reference to getting money out of an ATM may be rather badly timed, it at least shows that his mind is still linked to the ordinary world.

    Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois have co-songwriting credits on many of the songs, and Eno’s whooshing keyboard sounds and dense production threads through the album. (The tracks produced by Steve Lillywhite seem sparse by comparison.)

    Bono seems more passenger than driver here, and he sounds all the better for it. The Edge is in serious guitar hero form, going all Eric Clapton on the solo for Moment of Surrender , then kicking into Jimmy Page mode for the riff of Stand Up Comedy . Adam Clayton’s bass strains the sub-woofers, but Larry Mullen jnr’s drumming is an exercise in keeping the runaway train on track.

    The band leave it till the middle section to bring out the quickfire tunes ( I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, Get on Your Boots and Stand Up Comedy ), then settle into some Eastern atmospherics on Fez – Being Born (Fez, Morocco is where the album sessions began). The Asian flavours linger on the penultimate blow-out, Breathe, and in the final dispatches of Cedars of Lebanon , but the Western-flecked White as Snow , a traditional arrangement with new lyrics, sits comfortably and confidently amongst them.

    With No Line on the Horizon , U2 are no longer constrained by perspective or depth, and are free to throw the colours and shapes around and see where it takes them. They may not be the safe home ground of old, but they’ve arrived at a pretty interesting place.

    Download tracks: Magnificent, Moment of Surrender, Stand Up Comedy

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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.