U2 frontman Bono says his bandmate, The Egde, is the most influential guitarist since Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and The Who's Pete Townshend.

Bono's comment came in response to an almost flawless review of the bands recently re-released debut album, 'Boy'.

The album, originally released in 1980, was given four and a half stars by Rolling Stone.

In an email to the publication, Bono said he had recently listened again the record and decided that something “truly special” occurs during The Edge's guitar parts.

“Edge's genuine genius developing on the blank and bleached photographic paper... avoiding all the obvious blues scales that blind every other guitar player that ever heard Led Zeppelin ...The Edge finds some new colours for the spectrum of rock,” he wrote.

“Colours he now owns ... owning a colour, wow ... imagine owning the colour yellow like VAN GOGH... EDGE owns, well I'm not exactly sure what colours they are... indigo or violet or crimson?

“But you sense an emotional colour temperature that is unique to him... its his palette we’re painting from.”

He added: “Surely this is the most influential guitarist since the great composers Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Neil Young but remember he doesn’t have the history of the blues to plumb, these are unchartered [sic] waters... was to the English psychedelic revival we were also inspired by and plundering”.

(by Jason Gregory)