U2
2/7
No Line on the Horizon
First impression is this: bully to U2 for trying. Here is a band that could plonk out any old bunch of songs secure in the knowledge that it would sell like sexy hot cakes regardless of quality. But no: after the longest break in their career, they’ve tried to incorporate some new sounds and textures into No Line on the Horizon, including Middle Eastern percussion and loads of squiggly keyboard sounds.
That said, they’ve also brought in their three most frequent producers – Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno – so any envelope-pushing is being done in very circumscribed areas. Eno is all over the album: damn near every song begins with some of his burbling synth action, which usually has scant connection with the song that follows. The Edge has evidently found the bag of effects pedals he used circa The Unforgettable Fire and everything’s covered in sustain and delay. Bono’s still howling wordlessly away in most of the choruses. Larry Mullen, Jr pumps out his searingly competent drum work and Adam Clayton… well, he plays bass. As much as he usually does, anyway.
First impressions aside, let’s get on with the tracks:
1 ‘No Line on the Horizon’
A Bo Diddley beat heralds the beginning of Brian Eno’s new album, featuring U2. In fact, the cluttered production and layers of keys sound not dissimilar to what Eno did with James circa Whiplash. And then they staple some ethnic percussion to the thing for no good reason.
2 ‘Magnificent’
Kind interpretation: this harkens back to Zooropa, especially in the electro introduction. Less-kind version: hey, it’s REM’s ‘Orange Crush’, as rewritten by short-lived 90s synth darlings Republica! It’s here that Bono’s lyrics come to the fore and you realise that he’s followed Bruce Springsteen into the late-period creative cul-de-sac where he’s incapable of speaking in anything other than clichés and meaningless waffle.
3 ‘Moment of Surrender’
After the Vangelis-via-Eno synth intro, Bono delivers a husky, passionate vocal for the album’s first ballad, including an early contender for Dumbest Line of 2009: “Playing with the fire, ‘til the fire plays with you.” The Edge pulls out a rudimentary slide guitar solo and then there’s an oh-ah-oh wordless singalong that should be a hit at the half dozen shows where they try this one out before never playing it again.
4 ‘Unknown Caller’
Eno has a good old fiddle until The Edge remembers what he did for ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. There’s some genuinely great tasteful fingerpicking here, but it’s about this point you’ll start thinking “Hold on, aren’t U2 best known for their stick-in-your-head choruses? What happened? And how did the last song go?”
5 ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight’
There are two ways that a song with this title should go. The first and most obvious is a Bon Jovi/Poison good time blues-rock party anthem, with a kick-ass guitar solo (preferably heralded with Jon Bon Jovi/Sebastian Bach screeching “Guitar!”) and maybe some sweet harmonica in the coda. The other, less obvious but equally suitable way would be as a Bryan Adams/Aerosmith power ballad, which would also have a kick-ass guitar solo but would be less about partying and more about how crazy the love of a woman can drive a man. The song writes itself. The third option, which is the one that U2 went for, is to do an unmemorable mid-paced song with lyrics like “She’s a rainbow, she loves the peaceful life”, and a guitar riff lifted from Altered Images’ ‘I Could Be Happy’. My versions are so, so much better.
6 ‘Get on Your Boots’
The first single, and oh, Escape Club – how wonderful you must be feeling at this moment! Ever since ‘Wild, Wild West’ vanished from the charts in 1988 you’ve been waiting for a sign that you were something more than just another one hit wonder, so hearing U2 re-write the song must warm the cockles of your heart. And Elvis Costello must be smiling too, humming ‘Pump It Up’ under his breath as he dials his lawyers and wonders what sort of settlement to demand.
7 ‘Stand Up Comedy’
Bono says something about the Twin Towers and falling down and standing up, and then drops the line, “Cross the road like a little old lady”. You’d think that a band of U2’s status could extend a deadline so that their lead singer could write some lyrics, surely?
8 ‘FEZ – Being Born’
Starts off like incidental music from the last Prince of Persia video game, then snaps into a prog rock section while Bono sings about fire. It’s been done before, Bono! On track 3!
9 ‘White as Snow’
The absolute highlight without any doubt: a superb country lament. Bono makes a decent fist of it, but it would have been utterly perfect for the late Johnny Cash to wrap his weathered voice around. Bono’s nature references – seeds, earth, snow, fruit – make perfect sense in this context. See, Bono, you can do it when you try.
10 ‘Breathe’
Frantically bowed strings hit harmonics over Mullen Jr’s thundering tom toms, before the rest of the band burst in at cross-rhythms and Bono starts up a scansion-free declamatory vocal like a third-rate Bob Dylan. Still, once it locks in the chorus it all makes sense. Either the album’s picking up towards the end or I’m undergoing some sort of musical Stockholm Syndrome in which I fall in love with my captors as a coping mechanism. That said, Edge does pull out a three-note guitar solo that suggests he’s never even seen a guitar before, and it’s nice of Tears For Fears to let U2 use their keyboard sounds.
11 ‘Cedars of Lebanon’
Yep, they close on a ballad – and it’s about world suffering. “Squeeze a complicated life into a simple headline,” Bono sighs. And we sigh too, but for different reasons. “Oh media, when will you learn?” Then we go to a different perspective, that of a displaced person in a warzone. “A soldier brings oranges,” Bono sings, “he got out of a tank.” And with that clanging line, all magic is dispelled, like the unexpected slam of a toilet door. It’s a nice idea, and the tune’s a good one, but honestly: some sort of lyric editor would have been wise.
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Ocean Colour Steve
OCS guitarist on family, friends and the Kundalini Target
How long has the album been germinating?
I suppose it took me about a year to write, but recording-wise, it took me 6 days, which was quite a result. I did it at Weller’s studio, playing all the instruments myself. He had quite a few days where he’d go back up to London, and I’d stay down there and use that time.
Presumably you had it all ready to go in your head?
I did, yeah. I spent a long time planning it.
It’s quite late in your career to be turning out a solo album, isn’t it?
It is, but I don’t really like solo albums, to be honest with you, so it wasn’t always the plan. I had half the album written, I’d done a few demos, and it seemed to me that there was a link – it was quite personal. But, yeah, it came late in the career. There’s not a lot I can do about that.
Obvious question: what exactly is a kundalini target?
It’s a picture my wife painted for me when we were courting. She just named it the Kundalini Target, but I had no idea what that meant. Turns out it’s a form of yoga. And ‘kundalini’ was a word I’d never heard being used, so I thought it’d make a nice title.
Weller’s on there too, isn’t he?
Yeah, he is. He sings on a couple, and he plays twelve-string acoustic on one song called, ‘You Paint the Picture’.
What’s your relationship like with Paul?
I’ve been fifteen years with him now. I was a huge Jam fan – I suppose most of us were of my age – and it was a massive thing when I started playing with him. But it calms down over the years, you know? And now we’ve got this good brotherly relationship, I think.
How have the other members of Ocean Colour Scene reacted to you working so much with Paul? How have you made that work?
It’s probably blighted our course over the years, but generally it’s worked, I think. The others have worked with Paul, too. Simon supported him a few times, back in the day. But I don’t really calculate how much time to give to each project. I just work on them ‘til they’re done. You can’t just give it hours, you know what I mean? You’re either in on it, or you’re not.
Steve Cradock
5/7
The Kundalini Target
Every generation of musicians has its jobbing guitarist. The leading 60s incarnation was Eric Clapton, a musician who learnt his trade by ‘woodshedding’ (a practice, commonly associated with jazz, in which a musician locks himself away for months on end to perfect his craft) in John Mayall’s attic. Steve Cradock, Ocean Colour Scene’s studious stringsman, has been woodshedding very publicly for the best part of 2 decades, a devout student and accepted peer of Paul Weller.
To say his debut solo album bears similarities to his sometime boss is a little lazy. How could it not? Cradock has been at Weller’s side on albums stretching right back until Wild Wood. He’s part of the furniture, and as such is an integral part of the sound.
Knowing that Weller performed backing vocals, it’s tempting to approach this album as a kind of spot-the-modfather game, though that temptation is quickly overcome by the warmth of the songs. The Kundalini Target feels like a real family affair (Uncle Paul is joined on backing vocals by Sally, Steve’s wife), and very quickly wraps its affections around you in a way that Ocean Colour Scene’s more melancholy moments often manage to.
If he’s a little heavy-handed with his lyrics occasionally, his nose for a good tune more than makes up for it. From ‘Something Better’, the predictably psychedelic (but gorgeous) opening track, via the smooth Radiohead textures of ‘On and On’, right through to the summery ‘It’s Transcendental’, the album itches in a way that can only be soothed by repeated listening. It’s a very bright debut from a man who has spent his career in someone else’s shadow. Review by Jon Wilks. ‘The Kundalini Target’ by Steve Cradock is out now on Moseley Shoals Records.
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