A rock & roll open secret: U2 care very much about what other people say about them. Ever since they hit the big time in 1987 with The Joshua Tree, every album is a response to the last – rather, a response to the response, a way to correct the mistakes of the last album: Achtung Baby erased the roots rock experiment Rattle and Hum, All That You Can't Leave Behind straightened out the fumbling Pop, and 2009's No Line on the Horizon is a riposte to the suggestion they played it too safe on 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. After recording two new cuts with Rick Rubin for the '06 compilation U218 and flirting with will.i.am, U2 reunited with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (here billed as "Danny" for some reason), who not only produced The Joshua Tree but pointed the group toward aural architecture on The Unforgettable Fire.
"Look at you!" cries Bono midway through U2's opening song, Even Better Than the Real Thing. "A whole city in the rain." Dreadful weather has a way of focusing the mind. U2's booking has divided festivalgoers since it was first announced, before Bono's back injury forced a postponement. But their healthy back catalogue and formidable showmanship seems well-placed to raise sodden spirits.
~guardian.co.uk
Described by critics as melodramatic and bombastic, the Mission, as they were known in their native U.K. (their name had to be changed in America owing to a Philadelphia R&B band with the same moniker), nonetheless attracted a core audience of goth rock fans…
It's not just that the Mission changed their sound, it's that they changed it numerous times on one album. For bands in the goth-pop genre, 1992 was kind of the breaking point: in England, shoegazer and baggy had changed everything, and in the U.S., Nirvana and grunge added a whole new barrier to Brits trying to break into the States. Some acts like All About Eve tried shoegazer, and to a certain degree, it worked, while others would embrace their Englishness full-on or would turn to America and turn up the angst. The Mission, for some strange reason, went for a little bit of everything…
Until the End of the World is a definite contender for best motion picture soundtrack of the 1990s. With a lineup that includes Talking Heads, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode, U2, and others all providing original songs or new covers, it's an absolute joy. Interspersed with Graeme Revell's haunting ambient score, virtually every pop/rock track works perfectly as part of a cohesive whole. "Sax and Violins," recorded during the dying days of Talking Heads, might be the band's most confident moment, as a jazzy background shuffle and keyboards provide compelling momentum underneath David Byrne's sarcastic vocals. Crime & the City Solution could have made an entire career out of the emotional yet existential "The Adversary." R.E.M. and Depeche Mode both contribute touching ballads. "Fretless" is one of the most beautiful tracks to be found in R.E.M.'s discography, documenting a wounded relationship with subtle grace. "Death's Door" is one of those sad numbers Depeche Mode fans have grown to love, with Martin Gore handling the vocals.
Following on from the universal acclaim of their latest LP "Le Ceneri Di Heliodoro", ROME releases one of the most impressive releases in its prolific career of 15 years. "The Lone Furrow" is the logical culmination of all of ROME's previous endeavours, a brilliant and patient demolition of the despiritualised modern age, timeless in its critique of man's greed and the deliberate desecration of beautiful things. ROME is back to fearlessly settle accounts of the spirit, with that grave trademark voice, whose tone can be likened to a wise-man's oracle, deepened by countless cigars and pools of stout, or, at times, a Stuka bomber nose-diving into dry gravel. ROME's art always stays slightly beyond the pale and Reuter certainly is what the mainstream would call a joyous outsider. "The Lone Furrow" is a mordant, clear-eyed critique of the modern world, spun with the delicacy of a spiderweb; a journey through the ravaged landscapes of history; a spiritual quest weaving a unique poetry of withdrawal from the troubling world into distant retreats.
A remarkable recording for many reasons, the debut of Tin Machine predates by nearly half a decade much of the guitar-oriented alternative pop that followed the grunge explosion of 1991-1992. This does not sound like Bowie in a band; missing are the quirkiness and theatrics that characterize much of Bowie's solo work. This is a band with a band attitude, not exactly what the fans were wanting at the time.
Until the End of the World is a definite contender for best motion picture soundtrack of the 1990s. With a lineup that includes Talking Heads, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode, U2, and others all providing original songs or new covers, it's an absolute joy. (…) It's hard to imagine a better song progression than that of the one from Julee Cruise to Neneh Cherry here. Throw in U2's Achtung Baby-shared track "Until the End of the World" and a Kinks cover by Elvis Costello, and it's almost impossible to think of a better soundtrack from or to the 1990s.