Thousands of music fans around the world got their first taste of U2’s new album this morning when the band’s latest single was played for the first time.
The single goes on release on February 13th, two weeks in advance of the new U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" which will be released in Ireland on February 27th and worldwide on March 2nd.
The single "Get On Your Boots" was introduced by DJ Dave Fanning on 2FM’s Colm and Jim Jim breakfast show and can be listened to on the U2.com website. U2 are to play the song live for the first time at the Brit Awards in London next month.
The single had been kept under wraps until today although one fan managed to record several tracks from the new album using his mobile phone when Bono played them too loudly from his beachside home in the village of Eze-sur-Mere, near Nice, during the summer.
The songs were placed on the video-sharing website You Tube, but were quickly taken down. Nevertheless, some enterprising fans have recreated the guitar lick for the new single and posted it on the website.
A prominent early supporter of the band, Fanning has always been given the first play of any new U2 single and the Colm and Jim Jim breakfast show was chosen as it was the programme Bono rang into in March last year after the two DJ's had been joking on air about his vocal ability. Following the RTE exclusive, the song was aired on a host of European radio stations.
The online reviews of "Get On Your Boots" have been generally positive. Musically adventurous, the song features a quickly paced Bono vocal delivery over polyrhythmic percussion and a scuzzy guitar riff.
Sonically more like "The Fly", off the band's "Achtung Baby" album, than anything they have released of late, already people are comparing the song to Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" and Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Lyrically, it alludes to the turmoil in the Middle East. For Dave Fanning, it is "a big song with lots of layers but not overproduced".
Rolling Stone magazine, which has heard the new album, said it was a “blazing, fuzzed-out rocker [which] picks up where [a previous single] Vertigo left off”.
The band's "No Line on the Horizon" album, their 12th studio album and their first in five years is expected to be this year's biggest music seller. It was recorded in Morocco, London and Dublin with producers Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite.
The band are expected to embark on a lengthy worldwide tour to promote the album. The Irish shows will most likely take place in Croke Park sometime in August/September of this year.
Uniquely the album will be released in five different formats: as a standard CD, a vinyl LP, a limited edition CD with additional content, a magazine style format with a 60 page magazine and a box format featuring a hardback book.
