Review: Will U2′s 40-song album of reimagined hits win you over or make you surrender?

The Irish rockers attempt to go small and intimate on their latest album. Photo / Olaf Heine

You can never accuse U2 of doing things by half. As a group their natural tendency is to go large, the bigger, more bombastic, the better. From vocalist Bono’s penchant for oversized sunnies, their history of lugging gargantuan, record-breaking stage sets around the globe on tour through to the built-in epicness of their catalogue of chart-topping songs that have swayed stadiums full of people for decades.

But what happens when the biggest band in the world decides to go small? To walk away from the defining characteristic of not just their sound but of their very essence?

We’re yet to find out. That may be the core idea or premise behind their new album Songs of Surrender, the guiding light of the project you could say, but U2 are seemingly incapable of stepping away from grandeur. They simply cannot help themselves. You may as well ask them to stop breathing.

So on their small and intimate album U2 do what they’ve always done. They go big. How big? Well, it contains 40 songs and it runs around three hours. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. There may not be shimmering electric guitars, rock steady basslines, stadium shaking drums or rocket-powered vocals but U2 have still turned it up to 11.

What makes the album exciting for fans, and a somewhat palatable proposition for the non-hardcore, is that those 40 songs are not new compositions. Even the most devoted U2 fanatic would have to balk at the prospect of a quadruple album of new numbers driven by pianos and acoustic guitars.

Instead, Songs of Surrender sees the band cherrypicking through their world conquering back catalogue to “reimagine” and “reinterpret” their hits and a heap of songs that that they just like. While the concept belonged to guitarist The Edge, the rest of the band, bassist Adam Clayton, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and Bono, all selected the tracks. There’s truly something for everyone contained within its monstrous track listing.

Of course, trying to be all things to all people is a folly. And there’s a good argument to be made that Songs of Surrender is the very definition of that word. The counterargument would be that U2 have come closer to that goal than any band since The Beatles. You don’t sell over 170 million records without appealing to a heck of a lot of folks.

But for all their talk of reconnecting with their past, finishing songs that rocked the world but they considered half-done and fulfilling the vision of their original concepts, the album is pretty much U2: Unplugged. With its strings, trumpets, barely-there drums, pianos and soft acoustic guitars these reimaginings would happily slot into MTV’s 1990s-dominating format. Listening to it you can easily imagine the band encircled in an abundance of candles and Bono perched on an uncomfortable looking stool.

Of course, at 40 tracks, it’s nowhere near as tightly focused as those performances. Many of which went on to become essential parts of an act’s catalogue, like Alice in Chains’ solemn performance, Jay-Z leaving the sampler behind to be backed by The Roots and, of course, Nirvana’s astounding set which defuzzed their sound to reveal the pop-chops behind the noise and came to both define the very concept and be widely acclaimed as the pinnacle of the format.

Conceptualised as a companion to Bono’s recent memoir Surrender, in which he titled its 40 chapters after U2 songs, the album is a solid history of the band, pulling songs from their 1980 debut Boy, right up to their most recent album, their 14th, 2017′s Songs of Innocence.

For such an incredibly lengthy album it doesn’t really miss. But that’s not to say it’s a complete hit. It’s far too unwieldy for that. Even a gold medal winning Olympic archer isn’t hitting the bullseye 40 times in a row.

But really, the worst you can say about Songs of Surrender is that it’s pleasant. Which, considering its running time, is a win. The record spins gently in the background inoffensively. It would be equally as comfortable soundtracking a dinner party as it would in those solitary moments of late night reflection.

It may mostly glide by, but we are still talking about one of the biggest bands in the world playing their biggest hits here. When Bono and co. achieve the full realisation of this project the results are simply sublime. Those classic, familiar, lived in, sing-along songs reborn with new sounds, new meaning and, at their best, a stirring poignancy.

These moments rise above the agreeable malaise. They snap you to attention with a power that comes not from their familiar expensive studio production or over-the-top stadium shenanigans but from the raw emotion underneath the histronics. Bono’s falsetto proving even more affecting against the sparse musicality.

The stripped down versions of One, Stay, Beautiful Day, Pride (In the Name of Love), Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own, Where the Strees Have No Name and Sunday Bloody Sunday all make the case for the worthiness of the endeavour. You could make an astounding single album out of the 40 songs here.

In this age of streaming and playlists perhaps that’s the idea. U2 surrendering these songs for you to compile yourself. To find exactly what you’re looking for. Because as it stands Songs of Surrender proves that you really can have too much of a good thing.

* Songs of Surrender is out now and available on vinyl, CD and streaming.