"Zoo Station"

U2
(Island, 1991)

What was that scrape and buzz, that snare beat that clanked like a hammer on a junkyard gas tank? And was the most stentorian, humorless singer in modern rock singing: "I'm ready, I'm ready for laughing gas . . . " So they shredded Bono's vox with barbed electronics, and the Edge made similar gargling roars on his guitar. Noise has never been so lovingly manicured, and it doesn't take long for the guitar to glow with celestial light and the big-time dance beat to kick in. "Zoo Station" announced emotional and artistic risk as one and the same, the band's wake-up call to itself.

-- Jon Garelick