Not so sure
All That You Can't Leave Behind U2 Island Records
U2 are back. This new album incorporates elements from their three-album excursion into electronica and dance music but this new offering is more Joshua Tree than Zooropa, which will come as a relief to many. Their ability to produce lines that simultaneously enchant and baffle remains undiminished: 'When the night takes a deep breath/And the daylight has no air' (In a Little While). And Bono's voice sounds better than ever.
But what of the desire to right the world's wrongs that produced the impassioned stadium rock of the '80s? Oh, that remains; it's just that U2 no longer seem sure what the wrongs are they want to see put right. With the fall of apartheid, their number one enemy, they became stripped of something to fight against; not even Jubilee 2000, with which Bono is famously involved, gets a mention here. There are hints -'In New York freedom looks like too many choices' (New York) and 'Walk On' is dedicated to Burmese opposition leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi - but never does the world according to Bono have its problems diagnosed with any precision.
No change possible?
Accompanying this ambiguous analysis is a certainty that change is difficult if not impossible: 'You're on the road but you've got no destination' (Beautiful Day); 'Who's to say where the wind will take you' (Kite). So what is the answer for those laden with excess baggage, stuck in an extended moment from which escape is seemingly impossible? U2 are unsure about this as well. Perhaps it lies in an organic, intuitive approach to life: 'Try to feel it like you do . . . When I look at the world' (When I Look at the World). Perhaps personal reformation is the answer: 'Teach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case' (Beautiful Day). Or maybe if we all just have enough faith . . . : 'You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been /A place that has to be believed to be seen' (Walk On). Or possibly we have gone too far, 'progress' makes us all do everything too quickly: 'Did I know you even then? / Before the clocks kept time?' (Wild Honey). Or maybe grace personified is the answer: 'Grace, she takes the blame / She covers the shame / Removes the stain' (Grace).
