TinKnight
Refugee
Really lending credence to my “no new album was being worked on in any meaningful way” theory
New Album Discussion 1 - Songs of..... - Unreasonable guitar album
- Thread starter dan_smee
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Really lending credence to my “no new album was being worked on in any meaningful way” theory
JamietheEdgefan
Refugee
That's pretty great news, Adam says Larry's made a full recovery, and that they're doing lots of recording sessions. Development of the next album seems to be in full swing, and with the whole band (i.e. Larry included) now.
But yeah, sounds like 2026 to me. My understanding (which admittedly could be wrong) is that albums need to be finalised months before release, largely because of vinyl pressing. So an album would need to be finished as early as July/August to be released in November.
Adam saying they'll have an idea of what songs need finishing by "the middle of next year" sounds to me like they wouldn't hit the deadline for autumn 2025.
Hey, maybe they will, maybe they do actually have a number of songs mostly ready to go from sessions over the past year (or two or three - it's been 6 years since their last album after all). I imagine something they've written/recorded since 2017 will end up on the album in some form.
... But this is U2 we're talking about. So I'm guessing spring 2026 is the earliest we'll see the next album. Perhaps in the meantime we'll get a standalone single, like Invisible.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
U2 is a part time band at this point, if even that. That's why a new album does not excite me at all. We're not going to get a cohesive album where they lock themselves in a room and come away with something brilliant. I'd rather them really focus on a POP 30 year anniversary deluxe edition.
dabiggestu2fan
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I have good memories of that period too. I was an “extra” on the COBL video shoot and it was fantastic and the next night was the concert in Vancouver. Wasn’t my first time seeing ofcourse but I did like that era!
ferball415
Acrobat
Missed youse guys.
Yea, 2027 it is. That was my immediate takeaway from the RS article.
Yea, 2027 it is. That was my immediate takeaway from the RS article.
lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
Pathetic that it’s going to be 8 or 9 years between albums.
“I’m a songwriter.”
TinKnight
Refugee
LOL
I have a theory that they signed a contract that was too long with Live Nation and/or whoever manages their shows and music, and now they can’t fulfill it. That’s why they come up with crazy ideas like *Songs of Surrender*.
The first contract with Live Nation, for instance, came late in 2006, right after the peak of the *Vertigo Tour*. I’m not sure they were ready for a 10-year contract.
After that, there were delays. The *The Joshua Tree 2017* tour seemed rushed to meet obligations, as did the hasty release of *Songs of Experience*. Yet they still renewed the contract and couldn’t release anything. With Larry’s situation, they needed to release something at any cost. Without an album or a tour, they ended up doing the residency at the Sphere and releasing *Songs of Surrender*.
It might just be nonsense in my head, but I can’t understand or blame their age for so many unfinished or low-quality releases.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
I think it's more "This is what bands in their 60's do" than pathetic.
ascender_RS
Refugee
The new Cure album is great, but is 16 years since their last one, so let's all just hang in there and be patient.
Do they really care about making an album, and is the drive really there? There's no concerted effort to concentrate for large periods of time on music, they record in dribs and drabs and staying in their comfort zone with Jacknife and Lillywhite. There's no great vision in place, and for all its faults, No Line was the last album where they went into it full of ideas and enthusiasm and the ambition to strive for something new. Since then, it's been digging up the past for inspiration, posturings about them being 'songwriters' despite their songs being worse than before and selling out by hiring that hack Tedder to finish writing their songs.
It hardly screams of a band keen on exploring new territory, the curiosity of which was key to great U2 music. And arguably that attitude was the last time we got great music from them with some of the brighter moments from No Line.
It hardly screams of a band keen on exploring new territory, the curiosity of which was key to great U2 music. And arguably that attitude was the last time we got great music from them with some of the brighter moments from No Line.
OP
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
Larry recovering to record is not the same as Larry recovering to tour. The timeline could be as much about using the time they have to tinker because they can’t start until x date as it is them being “lazy” or “unfocused”.
OP
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
First morsel on evidence of life from Riff magazine:
“Evidence of Life” is an aggressive rocker sung by The Edge. Built around one of his angriest riffs and a simple, repeating synth pattern, its closest cousin would be “All Because of You”—but this track is rawer and more vitriolic.
“Evidence of Life” is an aggressive rocker sung by The Edge. Built around one of his angriest riffs and a simple, repeating synth pattern, its closest cousin would be “All Because of You”—but this track is rawer and more vitriolic.
OP
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
“Treason” stands out as more of an edge case than an Edge showcase. It’s the most experimental track in the collection, featuring staccato synth string stabs over a syncopated drum machine loop and minimal instrumentation. Bono’s melody takes center stage until Larry Mullen, Jr.’s drums and The Edge’s guitar join in, adding urgency to Bono’s rapid-fire delivery. It’s a reminder of how rewarding it can be when U2 embraces its weirdness. It doesn’t always work, but it’s never boring.
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
The centerpiece of the album is “Luckiest Man in the World,” a reworking of fan-favorite “Mercy.” The song, which leaked years ago on a U2 fan forum and became a cult classic, finally gets an official release. For a band that prides itself on reinvention, this track is a celebration of U2 sounding like U2. With a soaring vocal and a slow-building arrangement that culminates in a stadium-ready chorus, it evokes the grandeur of “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “City of Blinding Lights.” The melody is a knockout, though the re-recorded vocals hint at why the band shelved the track for so long. The vague, disconnected lyrics reveal that Bono never quite cracked its meaning—but with such gorgeous delivery, it’s hard to care
Hey they're talking about us!
Oh, good. Edge is singing.
ferball415
Acrobat
“I actually went and revisited this compilation we put out before ‘Beautiful Day’ called The Best of 1980-1990—if you can believe that—and it was a pretty sobering experience, I must say. There were just no songs on it at all. And it was clear that we only spent a matter of weeks or months writing and recording and even releasing them—at one point we were releasing an album basically every year or year and a half, which is scary to think about—that we would have ever done such a thing without a committee. Some of the stuff even sounds like Adam and Larry were not only in the same room at the same time but maybe even had an integral part in its creation, which is just hard to wrap your head around. There was some of what I guess you might call ‘character’, and I suppose even some passion at times, but it’s clear now that that’s a young man’s game. And that’s just not very rock ‘n’ roll. Now we know that real rock ‘n’ roll songs are what you write when you’ve been looking back for a quarter-century in one way or another, when you have years to tinker and second-guess yourself, when you’ve got half a dozen people who may or may not be producing an album for you in as many studios in as many cities in as many years. That sense of just total jeopardy that keeps your inability to cut the shit fresh, to go back to basics and return to form all over again. That’s the U2 that we are now.” - Edge to Andy Greene (snippet from full transcript)
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
Irish times:
How to Re-Assemble captures the band in forward motion, trying new things and unafraid of making mistakes. That’s in contrast to the more official version of the group that we hear on Atomic Bomb proper – the sound of musicians seemingly terrified of forsaking their biggest-band-in-the-world status and so playing it safe to a fault.
Looser and more experimental, the new compilation pings cheerfully between classic U2 moments such as Picture of You and I Don’t Wanna See You Smile and the wigged-out curios Treason and Evidence of Life, where Bono embarks with notable chipperness on a new career as keyboardist.
As is inevitable with out-take albums, it’s a bit glued together and rough at the edges, but even U2 agnostics will find lots to like about tunes that are concerned with artistic expression rather than giving the vast U2 audience more of what it likes. Hold on to your mirror shades and the tiny beanie hat you’re under no circumstances removing for a track-by-track breakdown.
The making of Atomic Bomb was a drawn-out process even by the standards of U2, whose albums tend to come together first slowly and then in a scramble for the finish line. A case in point is Picture of You. Written because Bono wanted the words “How to dismantle an atomic bomb” to feature somewhere on the LP of the same name, Picture of You was initially called Xanax & Wine, then rerecorded as Fast Cars and bunged on Atomic Bomb as a bonus cut. This version catches the composition mid-evolution: it’s nearly a minute longer than the final edit, and Edge’s guitar has more bite. It’s still a great song, Bono’s vocal zoning in with relish on its catchy “All I want is a picture of you” hook.
U2 go epic with a blistering opening guitar and Bono and Edge’s intermingled voices on a gospel-style chorus. This song, believed to have been extensively rerecorded for the 2024 reissue, sparkles with life. After several years in the songwriting doldrums, and coming off an acclaimed residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, U2 are perhaps set to soar again.
In 2003 Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads were reviving the taut pop-funk of Talking Heads and Gang of Four, and U2 were taking notes. Behold the band’s “landfill indie” moment as Bono barks out “Yeah, yeah, yeah” and the Edge sets controls for the heart of the student disco. It’s fine, but other artists have done it so much better.
How to Re-Assemble captures the band in forward motion, trying new things and unafraid of making mistakes. That’s in contrast to the more official version of the group that we hear on Atomic Bomb proper – the sound of musicians seemingly terrified of forsaking their biggest-band-in-the-world status and so playing it safe to a fault.
Looser and more experimental, the new compilation pings cheerfully between classic U2 moments such as Picture of You and I Don’t Wanna See You Smile and the wigged-out curios Treason and Evidence of Life, where Bono embarks with notable chipperness on a new career as keyboardist.
As is inevitable with out-take albums, it’s a bit glued together and rough at the edges, but even U2 agnostics will find lots to like about tunes that are concerned with artistic expression rather than giving the vast U2 audience more of what it likes. Hold on to your mirror shades and the tiny beanie hat you’re under no circumstances removing for a track-by-track breakdown.
1: Picture of You (X+W)
The making of Atomic Bomb was a drawn-out process even by the standards of U2, whose albums tend to come together first slowly and then in a scramble for the finish line. A case in point is Picture of You. Written because Bono wanted the words “How to dismantle an atomic bomb” to feature somewhere on the LP of the same name, Picture of You was initially called Xanax & Wine, then rerecorded as Fast Cars and bunged on Atomic Bomb as a bonus cut. This version catches the composition mid-evolution: it’s nearly a minute longer than the final edit, and Edge’s guitar has more bite. It’s still a great song, Bono’s vocal zoning in with relish on its catchy “All I want is a picture of you” hook.
2: Evidence of Life
A thumping bass gives way to a psychedelic keyboard played by Bono, followed by the Edge’s “depressed Bee Gees” backing vocals. Evidence of Life is great fun – a contrast with the lugubrious tone of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The bridge features spiky guitar from the Edge, although U2 lose momentum as they slow down for an undercooked Bono chorus (“We need evidence of ... liiiiife). Edge rescues it with his gorgeous falsetto, helping the melody really take off in its final 30 seconds.3: Luckiest Man in the World
The guitar at the start sounds like The Killers’ Mr Brightside (released the previous year), but the soaring spirit of Luckiest Man in the World is 100 per cent Joshua Tree and U2’s spiritual-but-somehow-not-preachy pomp. The song has had a long and complicated history: initially titled Mercy, it was among several tracks that leaked in 2004; originally pencilled in as Atomic Bomb’s closer, it was then ditched for length reasons. Retitled Luckiest Man in the World and trimmed by 20 seconds or so, it’s in the tradition of U2 anthems celebrating love and resilience and steeped in the sacramental imagery that is a Bono speciality (“I was drinking some wine, and it turned to blood / what’s the use of religion if you’re already good?”).4: Treason
A veer into left field with this trip-hop-fuelled number that has its origins in a session featuring Bono, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics and the former NWA beatmaster and gangsta-rap icon Dr Dre at Dre’s studio in Los Angeles. Treason is a rumpled call back to the wonky dance music of U2’s 1997 Pop era – a once-scorned chapter in the band’s history that fans have recently come back around to. With its satisfyingly shuffling groove and funky guitar, the song would have stood out on the sombre Atomic Bomb like a clown suit at a wake.5: I Don’t Wanna See You Smile
A cause celebre for some U2 fans, this track was originally called Smile and released in a digital box set bundled with Apple’s U2 edition iPod from 2004. It’s an epic belter with a great shimmering Edge riff, lashings of acoustic guitar and Bono’s cracking-with-emotion voice – a power ballad to remind the world why U2 meant so much to so many for so long.6: Country Mile
U2 go epic with a blistering opening guitar and Bono and Edge’s intermingled voices on a gospel-style chorus. This song, believed to have been extensively rerecorded for the 2024 reissue, sparkles with life. After several years in the songwriting doldrums, and coming off an acclaimed residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, U2 are perhaps set to soar again.
7: Happiness
In 2003 Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads were reviving the taut pop-funk of Talking Heads and Gang of Four, and U2 were taking notes. Behold the band’s “landfill indie” moment as Bono barks out “Yeah, yeah, yeah” and the Edge sets controls for the heart of the student disco. It’s fine, but other artists have done it so much better.
8: Are You Gonna Wait Forever?
U2 go shoegaze with big billowing guitars and an instrumental hook that sounds like a cousin twice removed of the goth-pop classic She Sells Sanctuary, by The Cult. Far too glammy to have sat comfortably with the pensive Atomic Bomb – though a bauble fans will be delighted to discover.9: Theme from The Batman
Bono and Edge would stumble into a $75 million omnishambles when scoring the disastrous 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. Several years earlier, Edge was already fine-tuning his superhero chops with the theme to the 2008 Batman cartoon. Notably understated, it resembles a moody art-pop remake of the “Na-na-na ... Batman!” banger from the 1960s – and is precisely the sort of weird widget you’d expect to find wedged down the back of an odds’n’sods anniversary compilation.10: All Because of You 2
The original All Because of You, the fourth and final single from Atomic Bomb, divides U2 fans to this day: many regard it as too mawkish even by the band’s standards. There is some interesting course correction on this beefier take, which upholsters the yodelling vocals with crunching guitars and a rumbling rhythm section. Bono does sound as if he’d rather be sermonising than singing – but, for neither the first nor the last time, his bandmates rescue him from his worst instincts.
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
Evidence of Life sounds like it could be anywhere on the spectrum from Exit to Stand Up Comedy. For some reason I had in my mind that it’d be the One Step Closer of this collection - the whole Edge credit for music and lyrics thing for some reason pointed to a bit of atmospheric noodling shaped into a demo.
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ascender_RS
Refugee
That sums up our collective mood on this place at times I think. We are all the Edge's depressed Bee Gees backing vocals.
ferball415
Acrobat
Would an example of that be the SOS version of “Desire”? Because I actually like that.
Oh my god it does sound like Mr. Brightside
JamietheEdgefan
Refugee
The Edge reflects on his early memories of Toronto, U2’s Sphere residency and the power of music in times of political turmoil
The Star caught up with the U2 guitarist ahead of the 20th anniversary of the band's zeitgeist-defining album, 'How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb'
"I have to ask, is U2 working on any new music? I know that (U2 drummer) Larry Mullen Jr. wasn’t able to perform at Sphere as he recovered from neck surgery.
Yeah, I spent the entire lockdown working on new songs and new ideas. Bono and I have been working together on some stuff, and we’ve generated a lot of material, and we’re now experimenting with the textures of the sound. There’s also some U2 recording sessions coming up. We’ve already done one a few weeks ago with Larry – Larry’s feeling good, and he’s playing well. He doesn’t want to overdo it, is sort of being sensible, but is playing really well. So that was a thrill for us.
And then there are some other, more experimental projects that Bono and I are working on – there’s this sort of Irish sci fi folk thing that we’re kind of playing around with, which may end up on the next U2 album. We’re not sure yet, but we’re excited about that."
Lines up with the last Edge interview where he said they were working with additional producers (beyond Jacknife Lee) on separate projects which would "likely be folded in to the U2 project".
So sounds like B&E are working with one or multiple other producers, outside of the sessions they're doing with A&L. Maybe it's to 'shop around', see what sounds promising, and decide who they'd like to bring in to help shape the overall direction of the next album. They appear to have abandoned the 'rock album' idea, and are exploring very different styles.
Seems to be very early days, and I know they're prone to exaggeration, but man, 'irish sci-fi folk' sounds a million times better than 'punk rock from venus'.
(Incidentally I was thinking the 'I couldn't find you' intro to Zoo Station at Sphere was so brilliant, and that they should pursue more songs in that kind of direction. I hope that's a little bit encompassed by that sci-fi sound, if they end up in that direction.)
ascender_RS
Refugee
please, for the love of god, no more Edge lead vocals. if he was meant to be lead singer, he'd be lead singer.
you have one of the best lead singers of all time. use him.
you have one of the best lead singers of all time. use him.
phanan
Blue Crack Addict
I don't mind the occasional Edge vocal. Serves as a nice changeup at times.
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