U2 continue to work on the new album
Almost eight years have passed since the last U2 unpublished album: it was 2017, the year of release of “Songs of Experience”. For some time now, fans have asked themselves about the moves of the quartet, which has remained very active in this period.
Behind the scenes, the car is on the move: the Fan Site U2songs.com has put together the various statements of the members of the band and collected rumors and reports that in August 2024 the four musicians returned to the studio, starting practically from scratch to understand the direction to be given to the new job. At the end of November three or four songs had already emerged from the first session, and further sessions took place in the following weeks. Adam Clayton, in an interview, explained that the project is underway, but there is no precise expiry date: the hope is to go out by 2026.
Also U2songs recalls that, last November, details had emerged on two parallel projects: one, described as “four men in a room”, with the band at work together with Jacknife Lee (producer of Snow Patrol, Rem and on stage with Bono on the solo tour). The other, born as a collaboration between Bono and The Edge, had been called “Sci-Fi Irish Folk” and saw the involvement of Brian Eno and still by Jacknife Lee. According to the site, the two projects would then be merged: recent interviews confirm that the band is currently working with Brian Eno to the new U2 album.
Bono, in a May interview, had explained that the sound of the new work alternates moments of sound directed to others “as something I have never heard before”. The hypothetical opening track is titled “Go”, and Bono defines it “an extraordinary introduction, I would like to be at that concert, I would like to be in that band”. According to U2songs, the band would also have the idea of returning to playing the new material live before even publishing it. However, it is difficult to see the band on tour before 2027.
When Rockol interviewed Bono in May, the singer thus summarized the internal functioning of the band: “Springsteen said a fun thing on the musical groups:” Democracy is used for places like Iraq. But not for a rock group. ” It is always amazed by the fact that we four U2 divide everything in equal parts and that we are still very democratic. A dynamic that explains the long times and the many discussions behind each project.
In the meantime, the last eight years have been anything but inactive for U2. After “Songs of Experience”, the band brought around a European tour, and then undertake the final tranche of the “Joshua Tree Tour” in 2019, with dates in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. During the pandemic, Larry Mullen Jr. had to stop for health problems, but the group returned in style with the residency to the las vegas sphere between 2023 and 2024, for 40 concerts. In parallel, reprints and special projects have arrived, such as “Songs of Surrender”-40 songs rearranged in an acoustic key-and the publication of “How to re-assemble an atomic Bomb”, collection of unreleased and alternative versions linked to the reissue of the twenty years of “How to Distantle An atomic Bomb”.
