U2 burst onto the scene with 1980s punky album Boy. It immediately established the group as a distinctive band embodying elements of new wave and punk, but sounded different from many other groups of the era. It was inevitable that October, the follow-up to Boy would suffer ‘difficult second album’ syndrome, and October suffers too, for being followed by the monolithic album War, a project that helped launch U2 into the mainstream.

Its a shame that October has gone comparably under the radar, for if you strip away the albums on either side of it and appreciate it on its own terms, it has a clear quality and is a fascinating glimpse of a band honing its craft. The rawer sound is refreshing and intriguing in contrast to the stadium-filling anthems that would come just an album or two later.

Today,