Mixed reception for U2's latest  November 24, 2004  Is U2 the
world's greatest rock band? The jury is still out.  The band's
new release, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, has received a
mixed reception.  It fused the "pompous sincerity of [the
band's] '80s incarnation" and their "ironic, self-aware '90s
version", said Simon Price in the Independent on Sunday. The
result "isn't downright atrocious - frustratingly U2 never quite
are - but neither does it sparkle".  Andrew Perry, in London's
Telegraph, agreed that parts sounded like early material
reworked by "post-Achtung Baby U2" - but this was no bad thing.
"From its wonderfully eye-catching title downwards, U2's 11th
album is top-hole pop art, sucking up the latest ideas ... from
around them, and reshaping them into the kind of exhilarating
soundburst that only U2 can make," he gushed.  For James
Delingpole, in London's Sunday Telegraph, the new album did not
"quite resolve the eternal mystery of why U2 are considered the
world's greatest rock band". Its sav