My hometown alternative paper, the Boston Phoenix, weighs in with a HTDAAB review called "After elevation, vertigo." I said I would only link theologically literate reviews, but I'm making an exception for this one because it provides some good examples of a dilemma I asked about in this post: What will people who are simply unable to align this album's themes with their Gospel contexts make of it?
Well, now we know: they'll hear a totally different album. The fascinating thing about this review is that Jeffrey Gantz knows that the band is supposed to be interested in spiritual issues -- so he tries to assess what the album is saying spiritually, but is totally unequipped to figure out the language. Gantz hears a U2 who have given up on finding transcendence and an album that, far from hoping to go somewhere (Berlin, pop heaven, God's heaven), is just looking to get its bearings. ... No "Beautiful Day" this time out. No "Elevation." What we need is a "Miracle Drug"... [ but there's] no affirmation on the exit this time.
He wonders if the kneeling in Vertigo is in prayer, or for execution? Execution?? On "Original of the Species": Too bad he gives us passion without the Passion. What??
And most astonishingly, he reads "Yahweh" as based around Satan tempting Jesus in the desert and identifies the ecstatic Song of Solomon spiritual marriage reference as pointing to Judas' kiss of betrayal at Gethsemane. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb closes the book on optimism, Gantz concludes, now that U2 are no longer blinded by the light.
Speechless here.
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