I’ll be the first to admit that I have been quite a rabid U2 fan ever since I bought Achtung Baby in 1992. The alarming enthusiasm I had for U2 started ebbing away with All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Here I am nine years later, struggling to locate my fan pulse with No Line On The Horizon.

U2 are still excellent musicians and the production values for this album are not bad. But with the songwriting, Bono seems a spent force. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois are credited with writing some of the material and Bono, once the poet, is now singing about OS X (“Force quit! Move to trash” is an actual lyric) and reflecting on ATM machines.

There were days when people discussed about other bands trying to be like U2. With this album (including the album photography), U2 seem to be trying to be like themselves from their glorious Achtung days. They are some good tracks (Magnificent lives up to its title) and some great moments on No Line On the Horizon but the sophisticated songwriting is just nowhere to be seen.

As my once favourite lyricist penned many years ago — “Look, I gotta go, yeah I’m running outta change / There’s a lot of things if I could I’d rearrange”.