For the 20th anniversary of U2\u2019s award-winning How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb<\/i>, the band (or record company, probably) put out an expected 20th anniversary remastered edition, not that it needed remastering to still sound good. But in looking at the vaults, U2 discovered 10 <\/i>unreleased, finished songs that didn\u2019t make the original album, and opted to release these as a standalone album and as part of the 20th anniversary reissue. To my knowledge, the standalone album is only available at Record Store Day, but you can also find it as part of the reissue on Spotify.<\/p>\n
This is as close as we\u2019ve gotten to new music from U2 since 2017\u2019s lackluster Songs Of Experience<\/i>, and it\u2019s already miles better than the dreadful re-recording project Songs Of Surrender <\/i>from 2023. Longtime fans of the band know that there are some great B-sides through the band\u2019s history that outstrip songs from their actual albums: \u201cSalome,\u201d \u201cSpanish Eyes,\u201d \u201cGround Beneath Her Feet,\u201d \u201cSweetest Thing,\u201d \u201cLady With The Spinning Head,\u201d \u201cBig Girls Are Best,\u201d \u201cSummer Rain\u201d and so forth. This carries on that grand tradition.<\/p>\n
Those familiar with \u201cFast Cars,\u201d the bonus track from the original album that didn\u2019t appear on the disc, will have a sense of what to expect. Re-Assemble <\/i>collects the more interesting detours and sounds that U2 was exploring during the recording session, and\u2014much like Oasis\u2019 The Masterplan<\/i>\u2014what ended up left off the album was more interesting that what ended up on it. How To Dismantle <\/i>is a conservative and solid album that falls off hard at the end; replacing the dullest tracks with the best of this \u201cshadow album\u201d would have resulted in a very different, much more interesting listen. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that U2 got boring around this time; it\u2019s that they consciously decided to shelve the more interesting parts of their songwriting in favor of commercially-friendly, midtempo pieces (and one rock song per album) that would sell well and not result in critical and commercial failures like 1997\u2019s endlessly interesting Pop<\/i>. So what you heard on Dismantle <\/i>was a band trying to sound like U2 and keep the throne of World\u2019s Biggest Band.<\/p>\n
What you hear on Re-Assemble <\/i>is the real U2, and it\u2019s far more interesting. The loose rocker \u201cPicture Of You (X+W)\u201d is an excellent opener, while \u201cEvidence Of Life\u201d takes the old-school U2 sound but updates it to a modern rock aesthetic (at the time; think The Killers) with Bono on keyboards and some great Edge falsetto backing vocals. The six-minute-long \u201cLuckiest Man In The World\u201d (originally called \u201cMercy\u201d) was slotted as the original album closer but bumped for its length; it would have been better than \u201cOriginal Of The Species,\u201d that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n
The most interesting track is \u201cTreason,\u201d which fuses elements of hip hop with the sound of Pop<\/i>, harkening back to a session between Bono and Dr. Dre (the latter isn\u2019t on this track, but the session inspired it; Bono raps around the three-minute mark over top of an overdriven Edge guitar. \u201cI Don\u2019t Wanna See You Smile\u201d was released with the iPod as \u201cSmile\u201d back in 2004, so fans who forgot about that will be glad to have it back.<\/p>\n
They aren\u2019t all winners. \u201cHappiness\u201d is a lesser imitation of Franz Ferdinand\u2019s \u201cTake Me Out,\u201d but shows the band at least trying to stay current, while \u201cCountry Mile\u201d is yet another soaring midtempo piece intended for arenas but without a memorable hook. There\u2019s also a brief instrumental called \u201cTheme From \u2018The Batman<\/i>\u2019\u201d that Edge wrote for a cartoon soundtrack that\u2019s quite good, and then the album closes with \u201cAll Because Of You 2,\u201d an alternate take on the original. This version pushes Larry Mullen Jr.\u2019s drums to the forefront and turns the piece into a fiercer rocker, with more vocal and instrumental fire than the album version. <\/p>\n
Like any b-sides or oddities collection, this isn\u2019t perfect, but it has several standout moments that dispel the myth of U2\u2019s slide into self-parody in the early 2000s. One can understand the decision to leave Dismantle <\/i>as it was, but more of these tracks and less of \u201cMiracle Drug\u201d or \u201cOne Step Closer\u201d would have made a far more interesting album. Regardless, it\u2019s good to have these songs see the light of day, and they help paint a more complete picture of a band that remained interesting in its middle age, even if they chose to hide that from the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":35146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5708],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-47024","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-u2","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47024"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}