Like the soundtrack-that-wasn't Passengers, this is U2 and friends in side-project mode. Though band singer Bono has quite a bit riding on it - he scripted the Wim Wenders-directed, Milla Jovovich-starring film as well as featuring on three new U2 tracks here and appearing onthree others fronting the "MDH band," a studio outfit centred around producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois and trumpeter John Hassell.
Credits aside, there's not a lot of difference between the brooding U2 offerings - the swirling opener The Ground Beneath Her Feet (setting Salman Rushdie's words to music) or the equally dreamy Stateless and The First Time - and the grandly languid atmospheres elsewhere.
But it's an unsatisfying collection. Ethereal, certainly, but mannered and with little, er, edge. And it can get a little strange too, like when Bono does his Nina Simone impression on Dancin' Shoes or when Jovovich painfully warbles a highly fast-forwardable version of Lou Reed's Satellite of Love.
Still, fans of arthouse U2 might find Million Dollar Hotel worth checking into. And there's always that movie, one day.
