Rage In Eden
	Produced by Ultravox and Conny Plank
	Released on September 1981
	UK CHART POSITION #4 . . . US CHART POSITION #144
	Find it at GEMM
CHR 1338 cover

Not the decaying, sterile (yet haunting) Europe of Vienna, but what feels like totalitarian propaganda tailored to the dancefloor. Rage In Eden is still moody, but this time with a steady backbeat behind it, which makes the music less threatening yet also less compelling. Honestly, I lost interest in Ultravox after this album. We came to dance? Dancing with tears in my eyes? No thank you. I do enjoy Rage In Eden in spots, like the skeletal title track and the dark “Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again).” And there’s no hiding that the ebullience driving “The Voice” and “The Thin Wall” is kind of contagious. But the decision to punch up the passion seems antithetical to the old Ultravox. Maybe that was the point; the new romantic movement was popular but had few players of this calibre, allowing Ultravox to move quickly to the head of the class. Maybe it was the loss of another iconoclastic outfit to the draw of the dance that deflated my balloon, but I find myself judging this album for what it represents (poseurdom) rather than what it is. Even through my jaundiced eye, Vienna is the better album. Signs of material slippage (lifting a melody from Talking Heads’ for “Stranger Within,” accidental or otherwise) and songs that run a little too long sap Rage In Eden of some vitality. After Systems of Romance and Vienna, I expected more than this, but even musicians have to eat (and dance). EMI made a bigger meal out of Rage in expanded reissues from 1998 and 2000 that appear to both be unique.

CHR 1338 back cover	CHR 1338 lyric sleeve	1998 CD reissue

TRACK LISTING

1. THE VOICE    6:01
2. WE STAND ALONE    5:40
3. RAGE IN EDEN    4:13
4. I REMEMBER (DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON)    4:57
5. THE THIN WALL    5:41
6. STRANGER WITHIN    7:28
7. ACCENT ON YOUTH    5:57
8. THE ASCENT    1:10
9. YOUR NAME (HAS SLIPPED MY MIND AGAIN)    4:28
   
   1998 CD bonus tracks...
   
10. HOSANNA (IN EXCELSIS DEO)
11. MONUMENT
12. BREAK YOUR BACK
13. OVERLOOK
    
    2000 CD bonus tracks...
    
10. I NEVER WANTED TO BEGIN
11. PATHS AND ANGLES
12. I NEVER WANTED TO BEGIN (12" VERSION)
    
    All songs composed by Midge Ure/Chris Cross/Warren Cann/Billy Currie

CREDITS

WARREN CANN -- drums, electronic percussion, vocals
CHRIS CROSS -- bass, synthesizers, vocals
BILLY CURRIE -- synthesizers, piano, violin and viola
MIDGE URE -- lead vocals, guitars, synthesizers
Conny Plank -- engineer
Peter Saville -- sleeve design

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