This album features some stunning rock and evokes a haunting mood while leaving the spirit neither fed nor abused...

Who needs to make good LPs when you're this popular? U2 rank as one of the world's top bands but their albums are all pretty smelly...

The Unforgettable Fire has a lot to live up to - and it's this listener's verdict that it does so, unequivocally...

Blessed are the music makers: a truly unique guitarist, a fiery vocalist, and a rhythm section that can do just ...

This is not a 'bad' album, but neither is it the irrefutable beauty the band's fans anticipated...

An album of confident excitement, the work of a band completely secure about their powers... Bill Graham reviews Under A Blood Red Sky

Stairway to Heaven for smart people-even if it is played a tad too fast-and it kicks Under a Blood Red Sky over the rainbow...

A kind of grace through simplicity...

This is U2's most developed and mature album both lyrically and musically...

In spite of itself War is another example of rock music's impotence and decay...

'Complementing U2's lyrical growth is a newly developed dark sense of humour, which the band uses to striking effect throughout ...

U2's contribution to the progress of rock is that they've divorced guitar heroics from the idea of a dazzling guitar hero.

October is a musical and spiritual growth for U-2, a passionate and moving LP for me.

U2 will endure. October hits that home magnificently. It's just how they will endure that'll trouble us come U2 '3' or '4'.

U2, I guess, will continue to "move" in live performance, just like James Brown. But they will only move on the lightest surface.

'Needs time to work its way into your heart...'

'It's not a fashionable record either, because it needs time to work ...

As is common with most debut LPs these days, 'Boy' is a compilation of life-time best. (Hopefully a beginning. U2 have a long way to grow.)

I wouldn't worry about U-2 selling out because I know they will

U2 take us over the top

The sheer exuberance that redeems these 11 songs is admirably fresh...
Boo Browning in The Washington Post

With a deep, rich production U2 makes music which is hypnotic in its swirling images and textures...