'Carnaval De Luz,' the first full-length album of new material from U2 in nine years, will be released via Interscope Records on November 13. The new track “Silencio” is available now, accompanied by a music video. Listen HERE. Watch HERE.
Produced by longtime collaborator Jacknife Lee, the roots of Carnaval De Luz can be traced directly to U2’s two surprise-released and critically acclaimed six-track EPs earlier this year, recorded during the same creative period as the new album.
Those releases, Days of Ash and Easter Lily, followed the liturgical calendar, and so Carnaval De Luz sits, stands, and dances before them in timeline. The song connecting the album and two EPs is the final track on the new album, “Torn,” a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton, in what is her last recorded vocal performance. Co-written by U2, Parton, and Johnny McDaid, it details broken family ties.
Carnaval De Luz is released in the band’s 50th year, 2026, one in which U2 will have released 24 new songs. The album also sees collaborations from Brian Eno (co-writing and synthesizers on “Go (Carnaval De Luz),” “The Greatest Show on Earth,” and “Can’t Stop Us Now”), Martin Garrix (co-writing on “Glorify”), and Daniel Lanois (playing pedal steel on “Torn”); with additional production from Ryan Tedder on “Silencio.”
The Edge said - “It’s a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs — and features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording. Just saying.”
Bono said - “Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety… oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors. There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance! 'Cause in the near distance just outside our carnival of light there are all kinds of creatures… the same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters. So we make the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier. We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be.”
A music video for “Silencio” was shot in Mexico City earlier this year. “Street of Dreams,” the first song to be taken from the new album, was released in July. Listen to “Street of Dreams”
HERE, watch
HERE.
Carnaval De Luz will be available in formats including: Limited Edition Deluxe Vinyl & CD Boxsets, Various Limited Edition Coloured & Bespoke Vinyl variants, Standard CD, Standard Vinyl, Digital Download. Pre-order, pre-save
HERE.Track listing:
Go (Carnaval De Luz)
La Reina
Street Of Dreams
The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)
Superficiality
If The World Is At War We Better Not Be
Silencio
The Greatest Show On Earth
Glorify
Midnight Sunshine
Can’t Stop Us Now
Torn (Feat. Dolly Parton)
George Paul
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