Those who gave All That You Can't Leave Behind extra weight post-September 11, 2001--when songs like "Walk On," "Peace on Earth" and "New York," among others, sounded eerily prescient and eventually a little comforting--missed the point that it was a great record on September 10, too, brisk and catchy and more at ease with itself than any previous U2 offering. It had gravitas, accidentally so, but also grace. Not so with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which begins with a bang ("Vertigo") before settling into a groove bordering on torpor. Ten listens through and still nothing sticks to the bone--not the melodies (dull, waiting only for Wim Wenders to stick them over a movie's end credits), not the guitar lines (Edge sampling Edge, or Boy turned Old Man), not the lyrics ("Freedom has a scent/Like the top of a newborn baby's head"--really?) and certainly not the guy singing them (is self-parody any better than someone else's?). Sounds like something recorded in a studio located in a bank's basement.