U2 - The Unforgettable Fire (CD 1996)

excellent, u2 at their best, as soon as i played it all the memories associated with the time in my life when i heard it for the first time came flooding back

Very good album, this is the album that confirmed that u2 are a great band, if your reading this you obviously don't know the album. If you don't know the album and your reading this as a prelude to buying. Just buy it, for 3 or 4 quid you're getting some of u2's best.8.5/10
Cheers

This was the fourth studio album from U2, although it was the first of what became many great classics for them possibly due to the collaboration with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. It can certainly be considered the predecesor to The Joshua Tree.

The title refers to a series of paintings made by survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The band saw the paintings at The Peace Museum in Chicago along with an exhibit on Martin Luther King, Jr which led to further influence on the album most notably on the the single Pride (In The Name Of Love) and the dreamlike "MLK".

Thematically, the album began the band's fascination with the USA and centered around "two kings", Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elvis Presley. The latter is acknowledged by the murky "Elvis Presley and America", an improvisation (based on a slowed-down backing track from "A Sort of Homecoming") that takes the album's emphasis on feeling over clarity to its furthest extreme.

Although never released as a single, "Bad" provides one of the album's defining moments: a cathartic exploration on the theme of heroin dependency - a problem particularly prevalent in Dublin during the mid-1980s. It's since became a live favourite. Another song, "Indian Summer Sky", was a social commentary on the prison-like atmosphere of city living in a world of natural forces.

This album provides a great introduction to U2 at their best if you've yet to discover it.