Achtung Baby - U2 > Reviews > Are You Ready For The Laughing Gas

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	A Change of Direction but still groundbreaking and exhilarating and U2
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

After their trip into the American heartlands to rediscover their roots on the "Rattle and Hum" U2 returned home for their next foray into the recording studio. Well they overshot by several hundred miles and ended up in Berlin / East Germany for "Achtung Baby" as you may have guessed from the title. Like Bowie and Eno on the Low album they took in the industrial influences for the latest instalment in their musical journey.

The cover is a montage of industrial images, graffiti , and garishly coloured band pictures, included a controversial full frontal picture of a certain band member that leaves his religion in no doubt (this is on the back cover)..

The album opens very quietly with a distant cowbell (musicians cowbell not cow's cowbell) , which is joined by some industrial noise and superb slurring guitar riff by the Edge taking into the stunning "Zoo Station". This is the track I took my title from and the lyrics are appropriate.

"Are You Ready For the Laughing Gas, Are You Ready for What Comes Next?" implying you may need to be anaesthetised to take in this noise. It is certainly a shock to the more genteel systems , but incredibly exciting and stimulating nonetheless.

More classic guitar riffs implode into "Even Better Than The Real Thing", one of the singles from the album., followed by the beautiful ballad "One" recently covered by the great Johnny Cash (who incidentally guests on "The Wanderer" on Zooropa the album that follows this one).

The fourth track is one of U2's finest ever "Until The End of the World" , heard as part of the soundtrack of Wim Wenders film of the same name. A wonderful U2 power ballad , featuring an excellent guitar intro and some fine lyrics and vocals from Bono, with Clayton and Mullen provide a solid excellent backing.

Despite the new direction the album is still absolutely superb, and just listing the tracks doesn’t do it justice. The less well known tracks such as "So Cruel" with it's simple piano motif and heavy reverb guitar chords are superb..

Other singles are "The Fly" (the first one from the album) and "Mysterious Ways" (belly dancer) though , to be honest anything could have been released from this album.

It's only this exercise of going through , reviewing their albums one by one, that shows what a truly great band U2 really are.

As yet , in all the reviews I've done, there has not been any dud tracks. Though I'm sure Ill find some by the time I get to the end, but there's a long way to go yet.

Another one for your collection.

Copyright © 2001 by Mike Singleton, Newcastle, England