U2 surprised everyone with new music this week. They released a six-track EP (five songs and one poem) called Days of Ash on Ash Wednesday.

The Discovery

I didn’t even hear about it until Thursday morning.

And even then, I didn’t believe it. I saw a photo post on social media set to music, with the name “American Obituary” by U2. I thought, that’s odd, I don’t know of any U2 song by that name. Often social media sites license music so people can add it to their posts, so I thought this must be some relic U2 song, maybe a Joshua Tree outtake? I unmuted the post so I could hear the song, listened to a bit of it, and moved on.

It wasn’t until another friend posted about actual new U2 music that I realized what it was.

New Music

So we have new U2 music. We haven’t had a truly new U2 album in nine years (2017’s Songs of Experience). I’m not sure 2023’s retread collection Songs of Surrender counts. And 2024’s “Atomic City” for the Las Vegas residency was just one song.

There have been rumors of a new U2 album for years. I just checked in on the latest rumors a few weeks back, and the reports said to expect a new album in 2026. I figured I’d believe it when I see it, because they always say that.

And they’re still saying it. Apparently, this is just a teaser, and there is a new album coming in late 2026. That’s according to the band’s own press release, but we’ll see.

Why Now?

I’ve mused before about an aging rock band trying to maintain relevance. U2 have been reinventing themselves since 1990.

Bono always used to say, “Two crap albums and we’re out.” I’m not sure you can call their most recent releases crap, but they weren’t amazing. I think they’ve been on shaky ground since 2009’s No Line on the Horizon (looking back, “Magnificent” and “Moment of Surrender” are my only repeat listens). 2014’s Songs of Innocence and 2017’s Songs of Surrender further muddied the waters. Some good moments, a few good songs—not crap, but no real break throughs.

U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. asked the obvious question this week: “Who needs to hear a new record from us?”

The answer? When there’s something to say. Days of Ash is a political statement, each song inspired by person or moment.

“We talk a lot about when to release new tracks,” Mullen Jr. said in a statement. “The way the world is now feels like the right moment. Going way back to our earliest days, working with Amnesty or Greenpeace, we’ve never shied away from taking a position, and sometimes that can get a bit messy, there’s always some sort of blowback, but it’s a big side of who we are and why we still exist.”

So why now is the reason U2 still exists. It’s fitting that the band who always had something to say, always had a flag to wave, is finding a voice with statement songs in a moment that demands nothing less.

Bono’s a little more direct:

“The songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme to the ones we’re going to put on our album later in the year. These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation. Songs of celebration will follow, we’re working on those now … because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there’s nothing normal about these mad and maddening times and we need to stand up to them before we can go back to having faith in the future.”

But is it good? I’ve long awaited U2’s version of Johnny Cash’s late career resurgence with the Rick Rubin albums. Is this it? I don’t know. But I will say I haven’t seen so many people talking about U2 on social media in a long time. Granted it’s Facebook, so it’s a bunch of us oldsters. If it breaks through on TikTok then they might have something.

Initial Take on Days of Ash

For the last several U2 albums, I’ve live blogged my initial reaction. I don’t write about music well, but I like capturing my first take. It’s often wrong, and that can be funny. Music has a tendency to grow on you and morph with repeated listens.

This isn’t my very first take. I first heard the album Thursday morning, and it’s been on repeat because that’s what I do with new U2. Though I will say the first listen didn’t blow me away. I didn’t drop everything I was doing and write this post then because I wasn’t that amazed. But it has been growing on me. So here’s my early take on Days of Ash:

• American Obituary – “The worst can’t kill the best in us.” Damn, U2 and maybe Bono in particular have been the conscious of America for a while—”Pride,” “Bullet the Blue Sky,” mourning 9/11 (that Super Bowl performance?), AIDS and African debt relief, Bono’s plea in response to terrorism that ‘we don’t become monsters to defeat a monster.’ Bono has long been enraptured by the idea of America and is quick to call us to account when we fall short. And lately, whew. This song is dedicated to Renee Good, the Minneapolis mother killed by ICE agents six weeks ago (exactly six weeks from her death to the release of this song; can we pause to revel in the speed of that creativity). This song is that conscious, amped up to angry, but still full of the classic Bono hope: “I love you more than hate loves war.” It’s full of powerful platitudes. And leaning into their classic flair for the visual, U2 released lyric videos with each song (again, in less than six weeks?!). The ‘POLICE’ to ‘PLEASE’ transition in this one is powerful. I didn’t react to this one initially, the almost spoken cadence of the verses not hitting, but on repeat listens I’m feeling the power here.

• The Tears of Things – “Richard Rohr suggests that the greatest of the Jewish prophets found a way to push through their rage and anger at the injustices of the day, until they ended up in tears,” explained Bono, talking about this song that wades into the difficult ground of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Some poignant words here—”If you put a man into a cage and rattle it enough / A man becomes the kind of rage that cannot be locked up”—but it doesn’t strike me as a go-to song.
• Song of the Future – This song is about 16-year-old Iranian Sarina Esmailzadeh, who was beaten to death by Iranian security forces during the 2022 schoolgirl uprising. Initially I thought it felt different for a U2 song, though Bono’s falsetto and those guitar licks remind me of 2000s era U2. “She’s holding up the sign all alone / But not alone, yeah, we’re not alone.”
• Wildpeace – A poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai set to music. I’m never a big fan of these. I mean, the words are great—”the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation to the next”—but I’m listening to an album, not digesting poetry.
• One Life at a Time – This reminds me of U2’s music for the movie The Million Dollar Hotel, like “The Ground Beneath Her Feet.” It’s written about Palestinian Awdah Hathaleen, who was killed by an Israeli settler. “Perfect love drives out all fear / Well how’s that gonna happen here?”
• Yours Eternally – This song feels like a fun departure. In contrast to Bono’s statement that these songs are “songs of defiance and dismay,” this one feels joyful and exuberant: “If you have the chance to hope / It’s a duty,” (reads kind of clunky, but in the cadence of the song it really works). The song features Taras Topolia from the Ukrainian band ANTYTILA and Ed Sheeran. Edge and Bono met the band when they traveled to Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion (because of course they did). It’s written like a letter back and forth, with Ed Sheeran coming in for the response (what little I know of Sheeran’s music is everything is soaring and catchy). The song has a light, airyness. Some of the opening guitar licks after the first verse are very reminiscent of recent U2 songs (can’t put my finger on which one, but oh so familiar). This definitely feels like those songs of celebration Bono hinted at for the upcoming album:

You are not lost out there because
You are not alone
If you have a chance to reach
Reach for me
In the chaos of the earth
We’ll find beauty
All this time we’ve been chasing dust
A soldier’s song a sailor’s lust
For the glory of a world
That we can’t yet see

So my verdict? I think there’s potential here. “American Obituary” and “Yours Eternally” are definitely growing on me. I don’t know if they’ll stand the test of time, but they are meeting the moment. Sometimes that’s all you need.