Product Description

Released over 25 years into their career, this is the eleventh studio album from U2. 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb' sees the band return to their classic sounding mix of rock, pop and strong songwriting skills, harking back to the days of 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'The Joshua Tree'. The albumalso includes the singles 'Vertigo' and 'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own'.

Track Listing

1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
4. Love And Peace Or Else
5. City Of Blinding Lights
6. All Because Of You
7. A Man And A Woman
8. Crumbs From Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original Of The Species
11. Yahweh
12. Fast Cars

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12156 in Music
• Released on: 2004-11-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 52 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A return to bombast and stadium histrionics, there is little disarming about U2's eleventh album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. A rather predictable if undeniably effective guitar-fuelled romp, with long-time collaborator Steve Lillywhite at the production helm, the Irish quartet's follow up 2000's 11-million selling All That You Can't Leave Behind with much of the same, something that will delight fans of Rattle And Hum while frustrating those who preferred the beat-driven experimentalism and eminently more evocative lyricism that made Achtung Baby! grab attention.

While there is certainly no "One" here with Bono proving a less politically subtle songwriter than he obviously is a proven negotiator on the likes of "Love And Peace Or Else"; "We need love and peace/Lay down your guns," he chimes simply, he does reach the heartstrings on "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own", a passionate ode to his dead father, and the equally sharp scribing "No I could never take a chance/Of losing love to find romance" on "A Man And A Woman."

As you might expect the production, assisted by the likes of Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Nellee Hooper, resounds with epic depth, while The Edge's trademark guitar sound rings throughout, cutting through the booming bass and honed rhythm section.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained then? Well no. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the sound of a band who, with a confident swagger, have finally decided on content over style. --Christopher Barrett

Customer Reviews

why would anyone buy this?
I don't even need to listen to this to know its rubbish, just look at the pretentious idiots on the album cover. Buy this to help bonno fly around in his private jet.

It won't get dusty on your shelf!
"How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" (hereby referred to as HTDAAB)is an album with a wide range of songs that both entertain and inform. This album is U2 at both their most politically engaged and least also. Yes indeed, this is a paradox, but therein lies the beauty of every U2 album from Boy to (I hope) the upcoming [untitled as yet] 12th Studio Album. The beauty of "A Man And A Woman" is something rare in U2 both musically and thematically in that it tackles emotion over history or politic - this is something I think I can appreciate, but the song itself is also very catchy!

To those overly-opinionated reviewers who gave this album a bad rating, I think you should re-evaluate your desire to give things 1 star - a case of twitchy trigger finger could well be at hand for you. I would also say three things:

1)Why do they need to conform to a single "sound"?
2)Cease your incessant insinuations that Politics and Music should be separate! Don't be so naiive.
3)How are U2 finished NZ reviewer? Are you insane? Can you not tell the difference between U2 and Britney Spears? Do you realise how much power U2 still have as a band. If anything they are bigger than ever, what with the current trend of the naughties being a fluid fast-flowing river of come-and-go acts saturating the music industry. (Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys anyone?)

HTDAAB is an album that combines the punk inflections of Boy and War (Vertigo, All Because Of You), the smooth dark rock of The Joshua Tree (Love And Peace Or Else), the charismatic rhythm (without the misguided egotism)of Rattle & Hum (City Of Blinding Lights), the lyrical intelligence of The Unforgettable Fire and October (Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own), the experimental nature of the ZooTV era (Original Of The Species) as well as branching out into new areas yet again (Latino sound of Fast Cars). It does this, what All That You Can't Leave Behind perhaps was touching on, but in a greatly more mature and controlled manner. Here is an album that boldly says, "You like our old stuff from the 80s and 90s?" well you may like where we've gone forward since then...but you may not. We're not supposed to be generally appealing, we never were [Punk origins], and we aren't afraid of alienating obsessively nostalgic fans if we latch onto the new generation." At the end of the day, these guys make their living from music, so why criticise them for selling out (even though they haven't here)? Would you accuse Cadbury's for making chocolate that tastes nice, just because people like it?

Anyway, soapbox aside, I believe strongly that U2 are a band that are amazingly talented at reinvention - more so than the disputed queen of it in Madonna (hah!) - and that is what they are on the road to doing here in HTDAAB. Sure it is no Achtung Baby, but give them time. Perhaps once the 12th album is out and everyone loves it (fingers crossed) people who once criticised this album will see how it informed their emergence in the 2010s as the leading rock band in the world, still, after 30 years. This is how The Unforgettable Fire got its popular revival, as people began to see links between it and The Joshua Tree.

I don't know, I don't know which side I'm on. I don't know which side I'm on, I don't know my right from left or my right from..
This is'nt what I thought it would be!!
And thats a bad thing.
For a start off this is the first "bad" U2 album, in fact it completely diminishes what this band are about, have been about and are suppossed to be.

For a start, wheres the feeling in the songs and the music, its so dull "All that you can't leave behind" was a great album. But you can only make one album once and not twice, and the problem is they tried to make "All that you can't leave behind" again 5 years after originally recording it..I mean, its a recipe for disaster.

If you found "All that you can't leave behind" dissapointing, you'll really appreciate it after this.

Crank out the guitars again and rock!! Thats what this album was suppossed to be. The old U2 updates - a real rock album!! Well we never got it. Anybody could of written these songs, and the sad thing is, U2 did and released it.