Review: Vinyl Reissues of U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb'

The Unforgettable Fire was the last album U2 made before they become the defining megastar Rock band of the eighties, and it is transitional in sound as well as historical purpose. The production and arrangements are generally lean in the spirit of the band’s first three albums, but they upped the level of fist-raised grandeur that would be their default setting in the years to come. With that came the aura of self-importance that Bono-haters find most off putting. Nevertheless, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (an ode to Martin Luther King, Jr.) is still a pretty rousing anthem, and the beautiful title track (an ode to the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings) is even better. However, The Unforgettable Fire cooks hottest when U2 are ripping out stilettos like “Wire” and “Indian Summer Sky” with the punk intensity that made their debut album so awesome. If The Unforgettable Fire as a whole lacks the focus and consistency of Boy and War, it still delivers a healthy selection of U2 classics and only really loses the plot with the aimless, interminable, and atypically poorly sung “Elvis Presley and America”…and it certainly remains fresher and fiercer than the stardom-making but pretty boring Joshua Tree.

Freshness and ferocity were also the names of the game twenty years later when U2 made How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. While much of their electronic experimentation of the nineties produced good music, it is still nice to hear them continuing to exploit The Edge’s way with six strings following the similarly guitar-centric All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Dismantle runs through some basic U2 styles: there’s a bit of Joshua Tree-style pulse and grandeur in “City of Blinding Lights”, a bit of spare atmospherics and grandeur in “Sometimes You Can’t Make It Alone”, a bit of bluesy-gospel grandeur in “Love and Peace of Else”. However, Dismantle is most engaging when the guys scale back the grandeur on the rockers “Vertigo” (which sounds like U2’s decade-late answer to grunge) and “All Because of You”, as well as the very pretty “A Man and a Woman”, which is the rare U2 track to place acoustic guitar at the fore. Hearing Bono so restrained is like a breath of fresh Dublin air. Like U2’s disc of 20-years earlier, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb starts to lose steam toward its end with some fairly indistinct songs, but it’s still a solid album from a band with so much road behind them.

To commemorate the 35^th anniversary of The Unforgettable Fire and the 15^th anniversary of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Interscope/Universal is issuing both albums on colored vinyl. The Unforgettable Fire appears in its 2009 remastered-from-the-original-tapes form, which sounds quite excellent on dead-quiet, wine-colored wax. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sounds similarly clear and powerful on red vinyl, and both albums include 16-page, LP-sized booklets with lyrics, photos, and notes.