“Songs Of Experience, U2’s 14th studio album, revs up the ambition, to embarrassing results. It finds the group desperately searching for a radio hit while pontificating on American exceptionalism, shoehorning the Syrian refugee crisis into not one but two love songs.

“Love Is All We Have Left.” “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way.” Love is an unstoppable force, so submit to its awesomeness. In the blindingly sunny lead single “You’re The Best Thing About Me”—the Jimmy Fallon of U2 songs—it’s articulated with the subtlety of a swinging Trabant to the face: “You’re the best thing about me / The best thing that ever happened a boy.” The lyrics don’t get any more nuanced even when the subject matter gets weightier. “You! Are! Rock and roll!” Bono howls—unbearably—about his beloved United States in the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “American Soul.” The lyrics even invoke the word “Refu-Jesus,” a portmanteau of David Brent-ian insufferableness.

Even “Red Flag Day,” a track with garage-rock intentions and crowd-pogoing potential, screeches to a halt as Bono sings: “So many lost in the sea last night / One word that the sea can’t say, is no! / No! Nooooo! Nooooo!” You guessed it: It’s a toe-tapper about Syrian refugees drowning in the Mediterranean. (…)

For the most part, “Experience” is heavy on empty sentimentality, packaged around lifeless hooks and trite melodies that few U2 fans will remember, let alone sing along to, in 20 years. (…) It’s hard to expect anyone to give a fuck.”

(Kevin Pang bei AV Club)

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