U2 / Achtung Baby

U2
Achtung Baby: Deluxe Edition
(Universal Music)
* * * * *

Where did it all go so horribly right for U2 in 1991? They’d spent the ‘80s living in a black and white postcard, charting a path from political post punk to gospel-tinged Americana. Popular but boring, it was the band themselves that decided to terminate their image with extreme prejudice. The result was a comeback wrapped in black leather, industrial rock, Moroccan psychedelia and dance beats. In truth, they should have fallen on their arses - but instead ‘Achtung Baby’ set U2 up as one of the first bands of the ‘90s, as opposed to one of the last bands of the ‘80s.

It’s an album that swings on extreme contrasts: the lusty hedonism of ‘The Fly’ or ‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’ dominate the night town feel of the record, declaring the “new U2” as a sci-fi rock band and predicting the gothic menace of ‘Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me’.

On the other side of town, ‘Love Is Blindness’ and ‘Ultraviolet’ drag the record to almost Cure-esque depths of depression, describing love as “a dangerous idea that almost makes sense” and bleakly noting that “there is a silence that comes to a house where no-one can sleep.”

The weirdest thing about ‘Achtung Baby’ is that it sets itself up as a party record (see the sun-blazed strut of ‘Mysterious Ways’ or the industrial alien attack of ‘Zoo Station’) but as soon as you’ve adjusted to the idea of U2 actually having fun, then they hit you with the bleeding hearts club stuff. It ‘aint a bad trick.