After a band releases more than four or five records, it’s difficult to analyze anything thereafter. Is it as good as the last one? As good as their previous best? Historical and cultural shifts take a toll on your perceptions of both the old and the new, making it easy for a band’s reputation to precede it.

U2 has been around for more than 30 years. Throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, the band released some of the best rock anthems of all time before releasing some critically reviled music. Then band members returned to their status as kings of the world.

They’re kind of a big deal.

After “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” was ranked somewhere between “Meh” and “It’s kind of OK, I guess” on the U2 scale of greatness (the Grammys have little critical clout, since Radiohead has never won Album of the Year), the band is quick to prove that its not dipping into self-parody any time soon.

“No Line On The Horizon” — aside from having a very well-defined line on the horizon on the album’s cover — is kind of paradoxical.

For all the talk of experimentation and new direction, this sounds an awful lot like U2.

As much as the 12th lovechild of Bono, the Edge and the gang looks like, um … the 12th lovechild of Bono, the Edge and the gang, this one’s got freckles. But don’t worry, they’re the cute kind.

The introductory/title track starts with a comfortably driving bass line and slightly urgent vocals, before reducing itself to a sparse, relaxing chorus. And it works, in a walk-quickly-because-you’re-excited-to-get-somewhere-nice kind of way.

The eighth track, “FEZ — Being Born” is perhaps most obviously experimental in nature. The song starts as if mashing up the percussion from Massive Attack’s classic “Teardrop” with a piece from Aphex Twin’s “Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2,” then adds airy female vocals, turning this into a 2009 trip-hop version of the first half of “The Great Gig in the Sky.” Bono’s voice echoes — as if shouting from the back door to another version of himself in the front room — “Let me hear the sound.”

If any doubt remains, U2 provides the best album-finishing song since Nine Inch Nails’ “Right Where It Belongs.” “Cedars of Lebanon” is a quiet, atmospheric piece with subdued, conversational vocals. The political Bono speaks, presenting images of a culturally rich Middle East in a trans-Atlantic fashion. He conjures visions of war planes flying overhead by stating, “unholy clouds reflect in a minaret” and “squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline,” before wrapping it up with the one-line chorus, “Return the call to home.”

Considering the band’s age and back catalog, U2 could easily revert to set lists that play like a greatest hits album (á la the Rolling Stones) or rehashing old hits in a mediocre manner (á la the Smashing Pumpkins). Instead — and I’m sure Bono would attest — U2 indeed proves that they are still kings of the world.

Reach the reporter at rponeal@gmail.com.