Rage in Eden

Rage In Eden is the second album of Ultravox’s Midge Ure era. It was recorded over the timespan of 3 months in a studio in Cologne belonging to the band’s co-producer, Conny Plank.

Having felt supported over the success of Vienna, the band went into the studio with liberty of having the time and backing from their label to improvise music mainly. No material had been written prior to the studio sessions beginning, which caused the band to make up a lot of things on the spot.

Most famous of those is the story of Rage In Eden’s chorus, which is the chorus of the song “I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)” played backwards. The exact story of how this happened is unknown, but Ultravox’s drummer Warren Cann has compared it to a chant in a foreign language and recalled the band all being impressed by the effect it created in an interview.

Most re-issues of the Rage In Eden album feature a different album cover from the original artwork. The original was designed by Peter Saville (best known for working with New Order) but it has been said that licensing issues with the original artwork caused the band to change the cover for re-issues.

The design of the re-issue, featuring a U, a V and horseheads also appears in the video that was shot for the album’s second and final single, “The Voice.” It appears on a microphone Billie Curie uses when he plays a radio news host.