U2 How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Island ***

At the start of the century, Radiohead created Kid A, an album that took them off the beaten rock 'n' roll path and down some very interesting dead-ends. At the same time, U2 released All That You Can't Leave Behind, leaving their experimental, post-modern phase behind and swerving straight back onto the rock highway. Four years on, and U2 are trying hard to avoid going down a stylistic cul-de-sac. By the sound of it, they're having a bumpy, teeth-rattling ride. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is a big, rumbling truck of an album, groaning beneath its crushing cargo of bells, whistles and kitchen sinks. Steve Lillywhite is the main producer, but the band have also brought the whole gang back on board, including Flood, Eno, Daniel Lanois, Nellee Hooper and Chris Thomas. It's as if U2 had gathered up every phase of their musical evolution and compressed them into 12 shiny, lead-weighted musical chunks. The synths and programming of Jacknife Lee only add to the excessive weight. After listening to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, you feel as if you've carried the damn bomb up a hill backwards.

Opening track Vertigo you know; it's a fine start by any band's standards, and Bono's voice rings out with headspinning clarity over Edge's precipitate riffs. On another rocker, All Because of You, Edge has really got the early Kinks influences going, making for a Desire-like immediacy. At the other end of the scale, City of Blinding Lights is sensory overload, dazzling you with flashes and flourishes but not leaving much of an after-image. Bono's voice emotes beautifully on Miracle Drug, Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own and A Man and a Woman, but somehow you don't feel as if he's sharing his feelings with you, just showing them off a bit.

Despite its political-sounding title, this is a record about relationships: learning to love, to live with and to live without. On another standout track, Crumbs From Your Table, Edge's ringing guitar ricochets nicely off Bono's mirrored vocals, but we need more than a few crumbs of greatness self-consciously swept under a thick shag carpet of sound.

Kevin Courtney