Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Music

All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best Of 2009
Best Of 2008
Best Of 2007
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
Best Of 2003
Best Of 2002
Best Of 2001
Best Of 2000

Upcoming &
Recent Releases

sort by namesort by score

70 AFI
65 Air
71 Alice In Chains
77 Amerie
70 Anjulie
85 The Antlers
75 Arctic Monkeys
68 As Tall As Lions
82 Atlas Sound
75 The Avett Brothers
67 Backstreet Boys
56 Bad Lieutenant
68 Devendra Banhart
72 Lou Barlow
88 Baroness
69 Basement Jaxx
81 David Bazan
72 Brendan Benson
72 The Big Pink
96 Big Star
46 Billy Talent
75 The Black Crowes
51 Black Mold
59 Amanda Blank
68 Blitzen Trapper
75 BLK JKS
77 A.A. Bondy
73 The Bottle Rockets
63 Box Elders
65 Boys Like Girls
76 Brand New
73 Tyondai Braxton
87 Brother Ali
70 Ian Brown
75 Michael Buble
78 Built To Spill
61 Colbie Caillat
79 Califone
68 Mariah Carey
84 Brandi Carlile
73 Julian Casablancas
83 Rosanne Cash
69 Castanets
65 The Cave Singers
84 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
79 Vic Chesnutt
75 Choir Of Young Believers
81 Circulatory System
68 The Clean
84 The Clientele
71 Cobra Starship
85 Converge
71 Eric Copeland
80 Cymbals Eat Guitars
71 Datarock
59 Dead By Sunrise
76 Dead Man's Bones
64 Desolation Wilderness
88 Destroyer
63 The Dodos
77 Drive-By Truckers
74 The Duke & The King
66 Bob Dylan
44 The Entrance Band
67 Esser
69 Fanfarlo
63 Felix Da Housecat
68 Fink
78 The Flaming Lips
66 Flight Of The Conchords
79 Florence And The Machine
67 John Fogerty
59 Frankmusik
77 Fruit Bats
83 Fuck Buttons
71 Nelly Furtado
47 Gary Go
68 Ghostface Killah
79 Girls
59 Gloriana
69 Gossip
62 David Gray
66 David Guetta
79 Richard Hawley
74 Mayer Hawthorne
66 Headlights
79 HEALTH
77 Joe Henry
66 Hockey
69 Whitney Houston
68 Imogen Heap
59 Jack Ingram
79 Islands
73 Jessie James
74 Jamie T
83 Japandroids
65 Jay-Z
51 Jet
69 Daniel Johnston
76 Karen O And The Kids
72 Toby Keith
69 Kid Cudi
65 Kings Of Convenience
62 Sean Kingston
64 KISS
76 Kris Kristofferson
68 KRS-One & Buckshot
76 La Roux
84 Miranda Lambert
72 Ledisi
75 Sondre Lerche
56 Juliette Lewis
82 Lightning Bolt
76 Lightning Dust
73 Little Dragon
44 Pixie Lott
73 Lyle Lovett
66 Lovvers
75 Baaba Maal
77 Madness
84 Madonna
85 Manic Street Preachers
62 Maps
55 Massive Attack
57 Matisyahu
67 Reba McEntire
66 Tim McGraw
65 Brian McKnight
79 Mew
77 Malcolm Middleton
77 Mika
68 Amy Millan
76 Mission Of Burma
73 Modest Mouse
76 Molina And Johnson
80 Monsters Of Folk
62 Morrissey
85 Mount Eerie
78 The Mountain Goats
62 Múm
72 Muse
66 Willie Nelson
78 Nirvana
97 Nirvana
72 Nisennenmondai
80 No Age
71 Noah And The Whale
75 Noisettes
79 Nudge
68 Nurses
47 Dolores O'Riordan
74 Os Mutantes
73 Osso
81 Owen
76 Paramore
76 Pastels And Tenniscoats
51 Sean Paul
80 Pearl Jam
66 Jemina Pearl
72 Jack Penate
65 Phish
82 Pissed Jeans
61 Pitbull
79 A Place To Bury Strangers
63 Julian Plenti
66 Robert Pollard
79 Polvo
72 Porcupine Tree
80 Q-Tip
80 R.E.M.
89 Raekwon
69 Rain Machine
70 Ramona Falls
75 Dizzee Rascal
75 The Raveonettes
76 Jay Reatard
82 Reigning Sound
81 Rodrigo Y Gabriela
79 Russian Circles
69 Buffy Sainte-Marie
73 Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
61 Sally Shapiro
78 Shudder To Think
75 Sian Alice Group
70 Simian Mobile Disco
58 Simple Minds
72 Six Organs Of Admittance
69 Slaughterhouse
80 Slayer
61 The Slits
62 Mindy Smith
83 Solillaquists Of Sound
78 Soulsavers
77 Speech Debelle
58 Spiral Stairs
58 Squarepusher
55 Steel Panther
73 Sufjan Stevens
52 Rod Stewart
65 Joss Stone
75 George Strait
83 Barbra Streisand
76 A Sunny Day In Glasgow
74 Susanna And The Magical Orchestra
78 The Swell Season
76 David Sylvian
83 Taken By Trees
78 Tegan And Sara
68 The Temper Trap
72 Themselves
82 They Might Be Giants
67 Third Eye Blind
68 Throw Me The Statue
66 J Tillman
69 Times New Viking
57 Tokio Hotel
67 Trey Songz
42 The Twang
71 The Twilight Sad
58 Carrie Underwood
56 The Used
68 Various Artists
70 Various Artists
74 Various Artists
77 The Very Best
71 Kurt Vile
67 Vivian Girls
71 Volcano Choir
76 Rufus Wainwright
59 Weezer
80 White Denim
76 Why?
83 Wild Beasts
80 Wildbirds & Peacedrums
59 Andrew W.K.
71 Patrick Wolf
67 Wolfmother
84 The xx
70 YACHT
75 Yim Yames
79 Yo La Tengo
83 Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band
51 Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson
59 Zero 7

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

No Line On The Horizon

EMAILPRINTby U2

U2 reviews
72
8.2 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 277 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >

Album Info

Label: Interscope

Release Date: 03 March 2009

Discs: 1 disc

Genre(s): Rock, Pop

Summary

The 12th studio album for the Irish rock band was produced with Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Steve Lillywhite.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Rolling Stone

He is still singing about singing, all over No Line on the Horizon, U2's first album in nearly five years and their best, in its textural exploration and tenacious melodic grip, since 1991's "Achtung Baby."

Read Full Review >
100

Blender

No Line on the Horizon is U2’s third killer in a row--by now, it’s bizarre to remember that just 10 years ago, everybody thought they were headed toward the dinosaur band tar pits.

Read Full Review >
100

Q Magazine

Simply, what this amounts to is the best U2 album since "Achtung Baby. [Apr 2009, p.94]

91

Entertainment Weekly

No Line on the Horizon offers idealism spliced with new attitude and the same old grace, and is all the better for it.

Read Full Review >
88

The Phoenix

These 11 tunes deliver both the thematic and the sonic hugeness we expect from U2; you only have to proceed about 80 seconds into the opening title track before the Edge is spraying his trademark guitar sparks everywhere and Bono is observing that infinity is a great place to start.

Read Full Review >
80

Hot Press

No Line On The Horizon is a mature, tender, reflective record of great musical variety, depth and beauty that could only have been made by four people who’ve experienced just about everything that life can throw at you.

Read Full Review >
80

Mojo

The result is a collage of several kinds of classic U2 album, one that has the beauty of their panoramic '80s Eno/Lanois recordings plus the synthetic experimentation andd dalliances with pop merriment which revolutionized the band's modus operandi from "Achtung Baby" onwards. [Apr 2009, p.96]

80

Observer Music Monthly

It starts out blustery and familiar, before gradually revealing an unexpected and almost lovable sense of vulnerability.

Read Full Review >
80

Billboard

Digesting the blend takes some time, but the best moments offer that immediacy, as on the opening punch of the groovy title track and the chiming "Magnificent."

Read Full Review >
80

musicOMH.com

As far as exploration goes, U2 seem to have finally found what they were looking for.

Read Full Review >
80

Hartford Courant

No Line on the Horizon is a considered and nuanced work with significant depth beneath the dense, sometimes thorny exterior. Getting there, though, requires some work.

Read Full Review >
80

Uncut

It’s U2’s least immediate album--but there’s something about it that suggests it may be one of their most enduring.

Read Full Review >
75

Los Angeles Times

No Line on the Horizon partakes of that romance by trying to expose its inner workings. It's risky to expose those delineations; as the band said long ago, it's like trying to throw your arms around the world. But the effort has its payoffs.

Read Full Review >
75

cokemachineglow

Though I’d hardly go as far to call it their best album, which I guess makes U2 irrelevant by Bono’s logic, its best songs can credibly stand alongside their classics, and how many bands can maintain this level of vitality 30 years into their career? I give.

Read Full Review >
70

Prefix Magazine

By this point, it's within their rights to utilize pieces of their past in building a new present for themselves, as long as they don't half-ass it and start turning out inferior remakes of their old tunes. That's not what's going on here, and if anything, No Line is ultimately a more visceral and memorable effort than either of the band's other two 21st century offerings.

Read Full Review >
70

Boston Globe

By unshackling its adventurous side, the band helps Line soar gracefully, at least in part.

Read Full Review >
70

No Ripcord

All in all, a departure from recent forays into overt commercialism that doesn’t always work but provides a little U2 juice to keep the true believers happy for a little bit longer.

Read Full Review >
70

Spin

With coproducers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois explicitly included in the songwriting, it’s an effort to tinker and rough up and refine anew their music’s essence--with nobly sketchy results.

Read Full Review >
70

New Musical Express

It has the pomp and arrogance of their best work, enough new sounds and interesting new avenues to satisfy the musos and, at its core, is a very good collection of very good songs played very well. A little more silliness would go a long way, though.

Read Full Review >
62

Paste Magazine

On balance, No Line on the Horizon represents what "October" did all those years ago: a decent step forward that nevertheless recalls the past more clearly than it spells out the future.

Read Full Review >
60

Slant Magazine

Such is the album as a whole: a compromise between the experimental and the pedestrian that makes for an excursion almost as tricky as walking a tightrope stretched between two distant towers.

Read Full Review >
60

PopMatters

At the end of the day, No Line on the Horizon is an easy album to dismiss and an even harder disc to love, and some people will be ready to call it a masterpiece just as others are ready to deem it an outright failure.

Read Full Review >
60

The Guardian

A person of a certain disposition might feel the will to live seeping from them at the very thought of a U2 song called Cedars of Lebanon, but it turns out to be one of the album's biggest successes: a beautiful, downbeat coda to a confused and confusing album, one that can't decide whether it's ironic or sincere, experimental or straight-forward, and instead attempts to be all things to all people, with inevitably mixed results.

Read Full Review >
60

All Music Guide

Upon first listen, No Line on the Horizon seems as if it would be a classic grower, an album that makes sense with repeated spins, but that repetition only makes the album more elusive, revealing not that U2 went into the studio with a dense, complicated blueprint, but rather, they had no plan at all.

Read Full Review >
50

Dot Music

For the lovers, this patchy album offering moderate advance on its immediate predecessors will probably suffice. But in truth it's an unmitigated failure to reconcile the sound of their past with a cohesive vision of their future.

Read Full Review >
50

The Onion (A.V. Club)

U2 might try to pass Horizon off as atmospheric, but it’s really just a grab bag of underdeveloped ideas that never seemed to command the band’s full attention.

Read Full Review >
50

Drowned In Sound

Unfortunately, too much of NLOTH sounds staid and uninspired, again maybe due to the changing musical landscape that was going on all around them during the making of the record.

Read Full Review >
42

Pitchfork

The album's ballyhooed experimentation is either terribly misguided or hidden underneath a wash of shameless U2-isms.

Read Full Review >
30

Austin Chronicle

No Line on the Horizon reaches for "The Unforgettable Fire's" post-"War" reinvention but misfires this side of "Pop" without the songs.

Read Full Review >
20

NOW Magazine

The problems that litter No Line fall into two categories: mind-numbing blandness on the part of the band or embarrassing, face-palm-inducing vocal choices by Bono.

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 277 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

PencilNecked Geek gave it an8:
Very good, but takes a while to get used to. Kinda like POP in its level of inaccessibility. Definitely artier and more experimental than Atomic Bomb, but not as obscure and abstract as Passengers. I good, solid album that gets better with each listen.

T S gave it a10:
It comes down to patience, and, yes, overlooking the fact that the only forgettable song was their lead single (as so many have said before). Give it a few listens and this album will seriously grow on you. Get into Breathe, and Go Crazy.

darren b gave it an8:
Great Album diverse mixture of tracks, magnificent and fez clear highlights.

tj max gave it a2:
The album sounds simultaneously overproduced and unfinished. It sounds fussed over and doesn't really come to life. The lyrics are really uninspiring. I love U2, but this one stinks.

Dave B gave it a3:
A couple of decent songs but far too many embarrassing, dull, or directionless moments for this to be considered a good album. It seems they are spending too much time trying to figure out where they can fit into the market and not enough time coming up with some worthwhile ideas.

Indroneil B gave it a1:
The worst u2 album....Dissappointing!...Yet they will get th Grammy bcoz its U2!!....!

andrea m gave it a10:
U2 want to move along again. This is the end of another trilogy of albums that come from the same inspirational and tactical vein. It is very clear that being one of the biggest band out there requires a lot of planning, and that was evident in the last album. For this new effort, U2 do not play it safe, they are willing to risk. Will the risk pay off? I think so.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use