The Unforgettable Fire by U2

The Unforgettable Fire, U2's fourth studio album, came out on Island on 1 October 1984, and it's the sound of a band deliberately walking away from the clenched-fist rock of War. To get somewhere new they handed the controls to Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who nudged them toward something more ambient and atmospheric. At the time it was the most dramatic change of direction U2 had ever made.

Sessions got going in May 1984 at Slane Castle, which the band turned into home, rehearsal room and studio all at once while hunting for fresh ideas, and finished in August at Windmill Lane Studios. The record sounds like it was made somewhere far from the city: the guitars shimmer and hang in the air, the rhythms roll instead of march, and Bono's words, which he called sketches, float through the mist rather than hammering home a slogan. The title comes from an exhibition of art about Hiroshima and the atomic bomb.

The big one was "Pride (In the Name of Love)", a soaring tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. (as is the hushed "MLK") and the band's biggest hit up to that point. "Bad" is the other pillar, a slow build that became a live favourite, and the title track, "A Sort of Homecoming", "Wire", "Indian Summer Sky" and "Elvis Presley and America" show a band happily lost in the haze. Reviews were mostly warm, and a 25th anniversary edition followed in 2009.

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