At best, They're following the trend of a release every year and giving us at least some form of Songs of Ascent and then waiting until next year to release the new studio album; since, at this point, SOA would just be considered a leftover bonus from the NLOTH era. At worst, it's nothing but one website making assumptions based on old Bono soundbytes from circa 2009-10 and combining it with rumors of a new album soon. My money is on option 2.