The Fat Angel Sings

On this Ash Wednesday (the day after carnival), the band have released  a brand new standalone 6-track EP, “Days of Ash”. 

In advance of a new album in late 2026, the new EP is a self-contained collection of five new songs and a poem. Their  first collection of new songs since 2017, the quartet have a crispness that has been lacking in their 21st-century material, as they nimbly react to shocking news stories

U2’s “Days of Ash” is a politically charged EP that addresses current events and the courage of those fighting for freedom. The EP includes six tracks: “American Obituary,” “The Tears Of Things,” “Song Of The Future,” “Wildpeace,” “One Life At A Time,” and “Yours Eternally” (ft. Ed Sheeran & Taras Topolia).

The EP is a self-contained collection of five new songs and a poem, inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom. The release was a  surprise, with no advance press or warning, and it is available on digital storefront and streaming services. 

On subsequent tracks the music shifts into less aggressive mode – more acoustic guitars, less of The Edge in full flight, a noticeably hazier ambience – and the lyrics take on a more familiar note of consolation and optimism: biblical imagery, distinctly Bono-esque aphorisms (“the future, as everyone knows, is where we’re gonna be spending the rest of our life”). But a genuine urgency remains, no doubt linked to the EP’s relatively quick turnaround. It’s in stark contrast to the mass of second-guessing, re-recording and abandoned projects that have marked U2’s last couple of decades

The EP is available in high resolution audio and includes lyric videos for each song. 

Four of the five tracks are about individuals – a mother, a father, a teenage girl whose lives were brutally cut short – and a soldier who’d rather be singing but is ready to die for the freedom of his country.

Three of the EP’s five songs – there’s also a brief poetry-plus-ambient-instrumental interlude – commemorate recent deaths in conflicts and protests: those of nonviolent Palestinian activist Awad Hathaleen, 16-year-old Iranian protester Sarina Esmailzadeh, and, most recently, the shooting of Renee Nicole Good on 7th January.

The latter informs the EP’s lead track, “American Obituary”, on which U2 sound more righteously angry than they have in years, both in the lyrics, which have a confrontational man-the-barricades tone seldom heard in U2’s work since the era of War – “America will rise against the people of the lie … the power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power” – and musically: a stew of distorted guitar, growling bass and siren-invoking electronics.

“It’s been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year,’ explains Bono. “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…’

Bono lambasts ICE, Putin, Netanyahu and more as U2 release first collection of new songs since 2017.
It’s nearly nine years since U2 released a collection of original material, 2017’s “Songs of Experience”. They’ve hardly been idle since: two tours, two films, a 40-date residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, nearly three hours of stripped-down re-recordings of old material on “Songs of Surrender”, plus Bono’s autobiography, which spawned a solo tour, a stint on Broadway and another film. An impressive workload by any standards.

“Who needs to hear a new record from us?” asks Larry ” It just depends on whether we’re making music we feel deserves to be heard. I believe these new songs stand up to our best work. We talk a lot about when to release new tracks. You don’t always know… the way the world is now feels like the right moment.”

‘Six postcards from the present… wish we weren’t here’

“Days of Ash”, not a taster for their forthcoming album but, like Bruce Springsteen’s recent “Streets of Minnesota”, an attempt to reanimate the protest-song-as-quickfire-response spirit of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1970 single Ohio. 

Read more from Bono and Larry and also hear from Edge and Adam in a special 40th anniversary edition of the band’s magazine Propaganda – published as a 52 page digital zine to mark the release of the EP.