HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB ALBUM...

U2's comeback mixed the scope of their Eighties work with fragments of their Nineties experiments to breathtaking results; its successor arrived courtesy of Steve Lillywhite, their original producer, and took them "back to basics."

The songs themselves are linked by themes of love, peace, war, harmony, and death, themes which need the majestic grandiosity of U2 records like "The Joshua Tree" to be fully expressed.

By returning to a raw sound, similar to the basic grit-ishness of "Boy" and "October," they become more musically conservative, in the process ensuring songs that promise to catapult into "Beautiful Day"-esque highs.

It's on the exceptions, like the guitar fireworks of "Miracle Drug" or the midnight sensationalist glimmer of "City of Blinding Lights," that the record soars.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb has some great music. The lead off-single, "Vertigo," is jagged guitar rock.

"Crumbs From Your Table" plays like we're back in the 1980s.

"Love or Peace" is an interesting comment on war. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," written in 2001 when Bono's father died, shows us Bono at his most vulnerable.

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