No Line On The Horizon
by U2
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 30
  3. Negative: 2 out of 30
  1. AllMusic
    60
    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.
  2. The Guardian
    60
    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.
  3. Slant Magazine
    60
    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.
  5. PopMatters
    60
    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.
  6. The A.V. Club
    50
    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.
  7. Drowned In Sound
    50
    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.
  8. Dot Music
    50
    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.
  9. Pitchfork
    42
    The album's ballyhooed experimentation is either terribly misguided or hidden underneath a wash of shameless U2-isms.

Awards & Rankings

6
#6 Most Discussed Album of 2009
60
#60 Most Shared Album of 2009

User Reviews

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User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 409 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 324 out of 409
  2. Mixed: 42 out of 409
  3. Negative: 43 out of 409
  1. Lobatomy_Jon
    Jun 4, 2013
    5
    This album has a better user rating than Achtung Baby This band has been mailing it in since Zooropa. twenty years ago. Not a lot of spark.This album has a better user rating than Achtung Baby This band has been mailing it in since Zooropa. twenty years ago. Not a lot of spark. Boggles the mind.… Full Review »
  2. sirbauman
    Jun 25, 2012
    9
    out of the 9 points i give it, the first 8 come from a u2 album to finally showcase adamclaytons bass playing ability. the last point comesout of the 9 points i give it, the first 8 come from a u2 album to finally showcase adamclaytons bass playing ability. the last point comes for the song "breathe"… Full Review »
  3. howard_muse
    Sep 2, 2010
    6
    This is absolutely proof positive that the band believes it's own press. For a bit too long the band seems to have been under the impressionThis is absolutely proof positive that the band believes it's own press. For a bit too long the band seems to have been under the impression that they can merely thump their chests and spew absurdities like Crazy Tonight and fans'll eat it up. Put this album up against a classic like All You Can't Leave Behind and it pales glaringly. It has it's moments but they are too few and too far between to save it from sheer mediocrity.… Full Review »
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