- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Mostly this is U2 trying too hard, caring too much, being too insufferably genuine without having anything to be particularly genuine about.
-
Suffers from too much open-faced honesty and a serious lack of intensity.
-
A one-paced affair, enamoured with drawn-out ambient intros, crystalline guitars layered with reverb, four-note rumbles for basslines, choruses that go on forever and occasional, half-hearted stabs at “groove”. Meaning that it sounds EXACTLY as you would expect U2 to sound.
-
The harder U2 tries to rock out with wild abandon here, the less spontaneous they end up sounding, making How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb more like an incredible simulation of a punk-influenced album rather than an actual punk-influenced album.
-
This time, Steve Lillywhite and the other producers assembled simply construct a U2 album in miniature, mixing in the Edge's processed-guitar trademark whenever you fear they're straying into unforgivable un-U2ness. That's just not enough.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 294 out of 409
-
Mixed: 34 out of 409
-
Negative: 81 out of 409
-
ZackDSep 27, 2005
-
AristonBSep 21, 2009The worst album of U2. They could tour without this crap. Maybe 3 songs worth listening. New low.
-
tylerkJun 24, 2008