NEW TRACK ‘SILENCIO’ OUT NOW
LISTEN HERE
WATCH MUSIC VIDEO HERE
24 SEPTEMBER 2026 (TORONTO, ON) — Island Records today announces the release of Carnaval De Luz – the 16th studio album from U2 and the first album of new material from the band in nine years – out on November 13th, 2026. The news comes with a brand new track titled ‘Silencio’, available now, accompanied by a music video. Listen HERE. Watch HERE.
In the week that marks 50 years since Larry Mullen Jr. pinned a handwritten note to the noticeboard of Mount Temple Comprehensive School on the Northside of Dublin in September 1976, ‘Drummer Seeks Musicians To Form Band’, comes a body of work that sees Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. still finding new dimensions and possibilities within their creative process.
Recorded all over the place and produced by Jacknife Lee, Carnaval De Luz is a collection of 12 songs exploring themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom and endurance in the face of dark, encroaching forces. Sonically, there are echoes of the band’s most experimental work combined with some strict songwriting in the shape of ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’, ‘Glorify’ and ‘Midnight Sunshine’, as well as the 2mins 35second homage to early surf-punk insolence that is ‘Silencio’.
The roots of Carnaval De Luz can be traced directly to U2’s two surprise-released and critically acclaimed six-track EPs of early 2026, 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. Carnival, a celebration of the flesh, ‘carne’, before the denial that is Lent, a period of reflection, and the rebirth of Easter. The song connecting the album and two EPs is the final track on the new album, ‘Torn’, a duet between Bono and the late, great Dolly Parton, in what has sadly turned out to be her last recorded vocal performance. Co-written by U2, Parton and Johnny McDaid, it’s a tender country song detailing broken family ties that holds wider resonances.
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.”
The music video for ‘Silencio’ was shot in Mexico City earlier this year and is directed by Cliqua, the Mexican-American directing duo Pasqual Gutiérrez and Raúl “RJ” Sanchez.
‘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.
The track listing for Carnaval De Luz is:
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.
‘Silencio’ is available now as a digital download, as well as on DSPs. Listen HERE.Watch music video HERE.
About U2:
Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 has toured the globe countless times, released 15 studio albums, sold 175 million albums and won numerous awards, including 22 Grammys and Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience award. U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 and have twice been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song: in 2003 for ‘The Hands That Built America’ for Gangs of New York, and in 2014 for ‘Ordinary Love’ for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. U2’s fourteenth studio album Songs Of Experience – the companion release to 2014’s Songs Of Innocence – was released in December 2017 debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200, setting U2 apart as the only band in history to have topped the chart in four successive decades.
In 2018, the U2 hit the road with the eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour, an arena production which saw the band continue to push the creative boundaries of technology and engineering. And following 2017’s acclaimed stadium run with The Joshua Tree Tour – the record-breaking smash hit tour celebrating the band’s seminal 1987 album The Joshua Tree – The Joshua Tree Tour took U2 to New Zealand, Australia, and Japan, as well as bring “the biggest band in the world” (The Guardian) to Singapore, Seoul, Manila and Mumbai for the very first time. In November 2019, the band released a track in collaboration with A.R. Rahman titled ‘Ahimsa’, which was performed live at Mumbai’s, D.Y. Patil Stadium. In 2020, SiriusXM and U2 announced the launch of U2 X-Radio, a complete immersion into the work and influences of the band from the Northside of Dublin, all curated by U2. Songs Of Surrender – a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band’s catalogue, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years – was released on March 17, 2023, topping the album charts around the world including the UK and Ireland.
Acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world, U2 have always – since their earliest days, including the industry-defining ZOO TV Tour which broke the mold in 1991 – consistently pushed the boundaries of live performance, with ground-breaking stage shows that embrace the latest in technology and innovation most recently with U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere which lit up Las Vegas for a critically-acclaimed 40-date run to launch the world’s most state-of-the-art venue, Sphere. This ambitious creative project from the band, U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere saw U2 work once again with longtime creative collaborator and show director Willie Williams, as well as artists including Es Devlin, John Gerrard and Marco Brambilla. A brand new track titled ‘Atomic City’, produced by Jacknife Lee and Steve Lillywhite, was released on September 29, 2023 ahead of the Las Vegas shows at Sphere. The band marked the 20th anniversary of their critically-acclaimed eight-time Grammy-winning album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb with the release of a shadow album titled How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb (2024), which includes new, unreleased songs discovered in the archive of the original album recording sessions, including the tracks ‘Country Mile’ and ‘Luckiest Man In The World’.
‘Days Of Ash’, a brand new standalone 6-track EP was released on Ash Wednesday, 18 February 2026, a self-contained collection of five new songs and a poem – ‘American Obituary’, ‘The Tears Of Things’, ‘Song Of The Future’, ‘Wildpeace’, ‘One Life At A Time’ and ‘Yours Eternally’ (ft. Ed Sheeran & Taras Topolia) – which came as an immediate response to current events and inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom. A second, separate standalone 6-track EP titled ‘Easter Lily’ was released on Good Friday, a much more reflective set of songs emerging from a more personal, private place that some may retreat to in such times – exploring themes of friendship, loss, hope, and ultimately, renewal.
Carnaval De Luz – the sixteenth studio album from U2 and the first album of new material from the band in nine years – will be released on November 13th, 2026, on Island Records.
