U2 continues its cause with effect

U2: The Joshua Tree

We say: A joyful noise.

U2’s idealistic, hopeful vision of a world without war, drugs, hunger, racial tension and religious persecution is growing moredesperate with each album.

On The Joshua Tree, its first LP in almost three years, this not-so-young-anymore Irish band comes across as feisty and concerned as ever, despite such disparaging titles as “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “With or Without You” and “Running to Stand Still.”

Using the desert as a recurring metaphor for a world parched for conviction and compassion, singer Bono leads U2 through a strong-willed batch of songs that finds him searching for answers, the “rain cloud in the desert sky.”

Just as the early Mormons believed that the branches of the desert-raised Joshua tree pointed to the promised land, Bono and U2 cling to the hope that preaching world peace and human kindness will bring about social change.

Raising a fist in the air beats pointing an accusing finger, and U2 would rather fight than snitch.

The band’s message shines more clearly on this record, since producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno – who cluttered up 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire – now seem content to capture U2’s spirit rather than try to enhance it (which may also explain why ex-producer Steve Lillywhite was drafted to mix three cuts).

Once again, U2’s subjects make for uneasy listening. Unless songs about heroin overdoses (“Running to Stand Still”), victims of terrorism (“Mothers of the Disappeared”), working-class stagnation (“Red Hill Mining Town”) and the horrors of war (“Bullet the Blue Sky,” with its chilling pun about running into the “arms of America”) are your idea of standard pop fare.

The Edge’s unique guitar work used to be the driving force behind U2. But on this album, his familiar contributions – chiming chords here, ringing notes there, a little slash-and-burn thrashing on “Exit” – fail to break any new ground. And on “One Tree Hill” and “In God’s Country,” the band even sounds like it’s taking a step backward to the days of “Gloria” or “I Will Follow.”

So it’s all in Bono’s hands, or rather, his voice. At times, his over-emotional warbling, coupled with the band’s heavy-handed playing, reduces the sentiments to mere slogans.

But on most of The Joshua Tree, Bono shows some newfound restraint. The most gripping numbers find him singing, instead of bellowing, along to the slide-guitar and piano treatment of “Running To Stand Still,” the electric guitar and harmonica backing of “Trip Through Your Wires” and the ethereal arrangement of “Mothers of the Disappeared.”

Here, U2 delivers the blend of dramatic tension and gentle compassion that makes it one of rock’s most affecting bands. As Bono sings at one point, sometimes “you’ve got to scream without raising your voice.”

Source: St. Petersburg Times