Review of “Carnaval De Luz”, new work by the Irish U2
There was a moment – not too distant in relative time, don’t think about it – when it was a bit difficult to continue defending the Irish U2 in present tense. Reasons they gave us. The stage “Songs Of…” – throughout its entirety – left some good songs and tons of filler, with hardly anything memorable. Quite the contrary, those of us who had considered them one of the greatest bands of international pop rock began to give them up for lost. But then something happened. 2026 began and the quartet – with Larry Mullen Jr. back in form – released two new EPs, “Days Of Ash” and “Easter Lily”and among those twelve songs some light was beginning to show. Not enough to launch tons of fireworks that would light up the skies with optimism, but enough to trust that, despite their age, Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry still wanted to take it seriously. Maybe it was all a matter of inspiration, but that inspiration came back in songs like “Song Of The Future” or “Scars”, to name a couple.
It is evident that the U2 of 2026 are not the U2 of the eighties, much less those of the nineties, but none of us are who we were then. Older and tired, true, which does not mean that the meaning of life has been lost. U2 seem to have found it again on an album like “Carnival of Light”. A job in which they do not recover their youth, but they do recover the dignity of being a solvent group. Nor am I going to deny that the Castilian’s move, to look at Latin America, has something opportunistic as the turn towards the United States did at the time. The same as repeating the name of one of the artists of the moment –Rosalía, of course– in the catchy chorus of “The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)” to reach younger audiences, even if it is a rebound. Once all this is accepted, what we are left with is the group’s best album in a long time. If The Rolling Stones can still battle, so can they.
U2 have learned from their career. They know what to start “Achtung Baby” (91) with “Zoo Station” was the best way to make us raise our eyebrows at that time and “Go (Carnaval de Luz)” is the one they have to this day to try to hit at the beginning of this new album. The problem is that we are in 2026 and U2 are not going to revolutionize anything, nor are they going to make us believe that they are at the forefront of international pop rock. That they have been able to come back is enough. We forgive them that the effective “La Reina” has almost the same roots as “Even Better Than The Real Thing” or that the addictive “Silencio” aims exactly the same as “Vertigo”, because in these dozen songs there are many of the things that we like about the Irish. From the emotionality of “The Greatest Show On Earth” – composed with Brian Eno – to singles that fit them like a glove (“Street Of Dreams”). There are also songs that you begin to devalue and that end up sticking to you like “Superficiality” – with that falsetto that many despise – or that “Glorify”, which they sign with a all stars team of producers edeemers like Martin Garrix and Michel Zitron (one of the guys behind Swedish House Mafia’s megahit “Don’t You Worry Child”). They sound much deeper in “Can’t Stop Us Now” – with Clayton’s robust bass well underlined – or that “Torn”, the last song that Dolly Parton recorded during her life and which comes to mean – again what she learned – something similar to what “The Wanderer” meant in 1993 in “Zooropa”.
In my opinion, perhaps the worst of this “Carnival of Light” These are some of the phrases that Bono signs and sings – Rosalía cries out to heaven –, packed with optimism like a bodybuilder on steroids, but those of us who have adored him already know him well and, this time, we forgive him for having given us the collection of songs that can best fit into his live shows in many, many years.
And let no one think that I have faced “Carnival of Light” with the intention of defending U2, as I finally do, It is true that it is a group that has fans whose blindfold has prevented them from even seeing how bad they were at some moments, but others of us are one of those who practically gave them up for lost and we have been pleasantly surprised. If my 2014 self had been told that, twelve years later, I would be signing this review, I would have denied it not three times, but a hundred. And here we are.
