mercurynews.com: Frankly, it's been a while since U2 made a great album. The band rolled out a series of iconic records in the '80s, including ``The Joshua Tree,'' which was the final word on spiritual, conscience-driven music at the time. But in the '90s, the group tried to outpace its own fame with a baffling array of self-absorbed discs, pursuing a postmodern, dance-club hipster path that was trendy but smacked of dilettante interlopers sacrificing their soul to stay ahead of an impossibly commercial curve.
Those days seem to be over. The new U2 album, ``How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,'' which came out Tuesday, is the band's most personal record since ``The Joshua Tree.'' It's not only a joy to see the group rekindle its shimmering '80s guitar-pop sound (with original producer Steve Lillywhite back for many tracks), it's also encouraging to know that the music comes so strongly from the gut once again, without the latest techno-experimental production techniques. [
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Those days seem to be over. The new U2 album, ``How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,'' which came out Tuesday, is the band's most personal record since ``The Joshua Tree.'' It's not only a joy to see the group rekindle its shimmering '80s guitar-pop sound (with original producer Steve Lillywhite back for many tracks), it's also encouraging to know that the music comes so strongly from the gut once again, without the latest techno-experimental production techniques. [
more] 
