U2

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

24 years in, it’s no longer a great surprise that the best, most inventive music from U2, the transcendent Irish rock superstars that have evolved, survived and prospered where others have faltered, comes steeped in spirituality. This year’s model, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, is no exception, standing alongside their best: War, Joshua Tree, and the vastly misunderstood, but remarkable nonetheless, Achtung, Baby.

Like the Mark Heard song “Stuck in the Middle,” U2 walk a fine line between rock star excess and the language of faith and grace. For skeptics their faith is naïve, they are “too sacred for the sinners,” while believers think they’re “just too strange to believe.”

Like the bad boys who giggle in church when everyone sings “O Come, All ye Faithful,” Bono’s lyrics have toyed with the language of ecstasy from both sex and religion. Here, on Atomic Bomb, he continues to bundle sensual love and spiritual knowledge, the mind, body and soul twined so tightly that the concepts seem harmonious and inseparable.

So starting at the end, “Yahweh” is the Hebrew name for God. It’s a song of anticipation, advent, and praise amid uncertainty. The song asks to be made clean, for the soul to sing, and then acknowledges the reality of pain before birth, dark before the dawn. Which is to say, it would fit nicely in our Psalms.

Seen through this window, “All Because of You” is no longer merely a song to a lover, because the “I Am” response is also the name of God in Hebrew. In “Vertigo,” the disc’s opening chimes of freedom, speaks of the disequilibrium of modern life, so much so that in brings us to our knees. “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” is a confession and a prayer, “Love and Peace or Else” and “Crumbs From Your Table” recall the prophet’s demands for justice and righteousness.

And so it goes. U2 maintains past musical connections, but doesn’t fall into the pale shadow of the past that marked much of the second half of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Edge manages to find scintillating guitar tones that resonate and astound, yet somehow comfort, Bono sings with dexterity unexpected at this age, and the band rocks with unwavering confidence.

To speak of faith, to take all of life’s challenges as seriously as we must, to risk love and step up to the challenges of art and commerce, one must thrust one’s self quixotically into the abyss and trust that you’ll land safely on the ground. Once again, U2 risks it all, only to discover a home for us all, where—yes, you see where this is headed—the streets still have no name.
[Interscope] Brian Quincy Newcomb

This review was printed in HM Magazine's Jan/Feb Issue #111. To get that issue, with many other reviews, you can order it online or find it at your local newsstand on or after December 24, 2004.

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Comments

By woody

This site is a must see for any "Christian" U2 Fan!
www.goodfight.org
Go to the expose on U2.
It's a very interesting watch.

No Saint, just another Sinner trying to make it, Woody

By gator's music party

If I could have a lengthy conversation with any living person, it would be with the Pope for no other reason but to discuss religion vs. relationship. If I could work along side any living person, it would be U2's frontman Bono who has put his celebrated position and his mouth to work in ways that rival the acts of the "first" pope, Peter.

By pomopreacher

Woody, have you always been perfect? Neither is U2. If you'd been treated by the church as U2 has from the beginning, perhaps you'd have had a rough journey of faith, as well. There are a few things we need to realize about this video from Pastor Schimmel. First, almost every U2 lyric he quotes is pulled heavily out of context (similar to what many preachers seem to do with scripture). If they are put in context, and understood as written in context--metaphorically, rather than literally--they will tell you a very different story. As far as most of teh anti-Christ stuff that he sites (the upside down cross, the devil persona, the fly persona, etc.), I don't excuse that. Bono did some foolish things on his search for Truth. Didn't you, too? U2 was told by the church early on that it was impossible to be a rock band and be believers--so they rebelled in their search for faith. The more stones the church threw at them, the more bitter they became and the farther they fell away. But I'm grateful to God that He has guided them back. If you will even bother to take a look at their latest lyrics, you'll see something very different. They are like you claim to be, no saints...just sinners trying to make it. One more thing--the 666 image at the end of the video; Yes, they numbers "666" were a momentary frame in "The Fly" video--but the freeze-frame fixation on them was done by "Fight the Good Fight." There was no focus on them any more than any of the other words in the original video. Furthermore, read the Greek--"666" isn't the point in those passages in Revelation. My conclusion: "Fight the Good Fight" has twisted the truth for their own aims. Is that really Truth? Can we make people look even worse than they are for the sake of promoting the Gospel? Are we to go out into the world and hunt out evil and expose it. In my world, evil comes to my door. And the Lord overcomes it with good, through the love of Christ. According to Bono, "How do you dismantle and atomic bomb? With love."