U2 Announce First Album in Nine Years

U2’s first new album in nine years would make headlines no matter what, but it’s doubly noteworthy because it includes Dolly Parton’s last-recorded vocal performance before her death. Mark your calendars: Carnaval De Luz is out November 13 vis Island. The record’s lead single, “Silencio,” in which Bono briefly sings in Spanglish again, is out now with a Cliqua-directed music video where U2 play a near-empty dance hall. Watch it below.

“Roll up, roll up, roll up!” Bono said in a press release. “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.”

Album closer “Torn” is the duet between Bono and Parton, with both co-writing the song alongside Johnny McDaid. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the U2 singer revealed he originally reached out to Parton to record music for a side project inspired by Irish folk music. She turned down that offer, and instead showed him a song she was working on. “She said, ‘I got this song. It’s called ‘Torn,’ and do you wanna see where you can take it somewhere else, maybe?’” Bono told Rolling Stone. “When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that. And I can’t even listen to it now.”

Carnaval De Luz is the Irish band’s 16th album overall and the follow-up to 2017’s Songs of Experience, which was then succeeded by a collection of re-imagined U2 songs and EPs of protest music and Brian Eno collaborations. Produced by Jacknife Lee, Carnaval De Luz explores themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom, and endurance in the face of darkness.

Read about Achtung Baby at No. 118 in The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s.