I hear the album falling into basically three parts — the first 4 epic songs, which has got to be the most blockbuster U2 beginning since Joshua Tree; then the more domestic/pop/personal unit of “Crazy-Boots-Comedy”; and then the last 4 with “Fez” as the entryway into the intimate yet sonically and thematically expansive “White-Breathe-Cedars.” (In a sense it’s hard to come up with a description for that set that fits “Breathe,” but I do think “Breathe” is more intentional here than just being a change-up between the two slow numbers. There is something very reflective about it and its collage verses marry with the specificity of the two slower numbers. Any comments on this?)

When the subject of "No Line" isn't love, lust and assorted other good times -- still the meat of the rock 'n' roll vocabulary -- it's not geopolitics. It's spiritual exploration, even if the song's subject is derived from a geopolitical event, as in "Cedars of Lebanon" and "White as Snow." Throughout the band's career, U2's songs have referenced a spiritual journey inspired by its members' Christianity.

Here, the exploration continues. In "White as Snow," based on a hymn inspired by Isaiah 1:18 and with new lyrics by Bono, Mr. Eno and Mr. Lanois, Bono sings: "Once I knew there was a love divine/Then came a time I thought it knew me not/Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not/Only the lamb as white as snow." Said to be the thoughts of a dying soldier in Afghanistan, the song concludes with "If only a heart could be as white as snow." In "Breathe," he writes: "Sing your heart out, sing my heart out/I've found grace inside a sound."