Achtung Baby

4 stars

U2, one of the most promising bands of the early ’80s, has finally reversed its slow but steady decline into pompous mediocrity.

After 1987’s pontificating The Joshua Tree and 1988’s self-satisfied Rattle and Hum, it seemed the brooding Bono and his band were in danger of becoming the Spinal Tap of socially conscious stadium rock. Fortunately, although Achtung Baby is no Boy, U2 has turned away from self-parody to explore new (for it) territory again.

Both halves of Achtung begin with atypically abrasive blasts of guitar, heralding songs in which Bono sounds blessedly un-Bonolike. On the blistering first track, “Zoo Station,” his voice is sometimes distorted (has he been listening to Love & Rockets?) and is fairly low in the mix, giving ample importance to the Edge’s new versatility. Man, I was getting tired of that chiming-chugging-big chords business.

The Edge is still a big-guitar kind of guy, but he’s into feedback and distortion now and seems to have copped a clever thing or two from Neil Young, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Husker Du and maybe even the Butthole Surfers. Producers Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite all help him achieve a spacious sound without getting anthemic.

On “The Fly,” the album’s midpoint, the Edge starts out rocking and produces an insistent drone. For his part, Bono achieves a level of emotional involvement that makes him sound more like INXS’s resident sex symbol Michael Hutchence or Love & Rockets’ insinuating Daniel Ash than the too-familiar Bono the Proclaimer. The lyrics throughout the album deal on a more personal level, and in his singing, Bono shows a lot more warmth than when he was busy taking on the world’s problems.

From songs such as “So Cruel,” “One,” “Mysterious Ways,” “Ultraviolet (Light My Way),” “Solo” [sic] and “Love Is Blindness,” one might guess Bono’s love life is in bad shape. And of course, if you’re in need of inspiration, a rotten love life is a godsend.

Bono’s symbolism still teeters between pretension and cliche sometimes, and there are a few howlers he must have dug out of his teen diaries. In “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,” for instance, he rhymes “Who’s gonna drown in your blue sea?” with “Who’s gonna fall at the foot of thee?” Eee-yew. But he also comes up with superb imagery, both ambiguous and direct. In the sorrowful, Stones-y “One,” he bitterly asks, “Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?” In “Acrobat,” he chastises himself, admitting, “I must be an acrobat/to talk like this and act like that.”

U2 snatches a few leaves out of the Manchester Dance-Rock Invasion book on such songs as “Until the End of the World,” “So Cruel,” “Mysterious Ways” and “Ultraviolet.” “Ultraviolet” really needs a melody, but otherwise, U2 proves much more adept at the dance-trance thing than the Happy Roses or Stone Carpets or other indistinguishable haircut bands. Pretty cool the way the Edge sneaks that Johnny Marr-like guitar riff into “So Cruel,” too.

U2 saved one of the best for last. The somber “Love Is Blindness” features some of the Edge’s best spooky feedback fuzz, along with haunting, spacey keyboards (Eno plays on this track). Bono’s weird dum-dum-dum-dums at the end of the song have a Bowie-esque detachment. It’s an odd and intriguing conclusion to an album that shows U2 still has the power to surprise. (Of course, where this leaves U2 wannabes such as Simple Minds, we hate to think.)

© Orlando Sentinel Tribune, 1991. All rights reserved.