U2 will release Carnaval De Luz, their first full studio album of new material in nine years, on November 13th, with a 12-song tracklist that reaches from Brian Eno and Martin Garrix to a closing Bono duet containing Dolly Parton’s final recorded vocal performance.
The band formally announced Carnaval De Luz on September 24th, during the same week that marks 50 years since a teenage Larry Mullen Jr. posted a handwritten notice at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin seeking musicians for a new band. That notice brought Mullen together with Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton in 1976, beginning a lineup that remains intact half a century later.
The announcement also brought new music. “Silencio,” a compact 2-minute, 35-second track produced by longtime U2 collaborator Jacknife Lee with additional production from Ryan Tedder, arrived alongside a video filmed earlier this year in Mexico City by Mexican-American directing duo Cliqua. The official album announcement describes the song as an homage to early surf-punk insolence.
Yet the album’s most unusual recording sits at the opposite end of the tracklist. “Torn,” co-written by U2, Dolly Parton and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid, became the final vocal recording of Parton’s career before her death in August at age 80. Variety also confirmed the collaboration as part of the September 24th album reveal.
Dolly Parton Closes the Album
“Torn” was not constructed after Parton’s death from an archival vocal or unfinished recording. She actively participated in the song, co-writing it and recording a new performance for the duet with Bono.
The country-influenced track deals with fractured family relationships and closes Carnaval De Luz. Daniel Lanois contributes pedal steel, giving the recording another connection to U2’s musical history while moving the band into territory rarely associated with its album closers.
Bono told Rolling Stone that Parton was already ill when the session happened and got out of bed to record her contribution. What began as a high-profile collaboration subsequently acquired a significance nobody involved could have planned.
Parton died on August 25th, turning “Torn” into the final known studio vocal of a recording career that stretched across seven decades. U2’s announcement explicitly identifies the performance as her last recorded vocal.
The song also avoids the most predictable version of a U2-country crossover. Rather than placing Parton over an arena-rock arrangement, “Torn” is described as a tender country song, with Lanois’ pedal steel helping establish that direction.
Placed at track 12, it means Carnaval De Luz ends somewhere musically removed from the brevity and abrasion of “Silencio.” The credits across the rest of the album suggest that kind of contrast is intentional.
Jacknife Lee Anchors a Wide Production Team
Jacknife Lee serves as the album’s primary producer, continuing a relationship with U2 that stretches across several phases of the band’s later catalog. Around him, Carnaval De Luz brings together collaborators connected to very different periods of U2’s history.
Brian Eno co-wrote and plays synthesizers on “Go (Carnaval De Luz),” “The Greatest Show On Earth” and “Can’t Stop Us Now.” His involvement reconnects U2 with the experimental studio partnership that helped shape The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.
Daniel Lanois, Eno’s production partner on several of those records, appears here in a more specific instrumental role through his pedal steel on “Torn.” Martin Garrix co-wrote “Glorify,” while Tedder contributes additional production to “Silencio.”
One credit is less straightforward. “The Mirror Maker” carries Rosalía’s name in parentheses on U2’s official tracklist, although the band’s announcement does not define the exact nature of that credit. Stereogum notes that the track is not a conventional Rosalía feature, making it safer to leave the precise contribution open until fuller credits are available.
The Edge has called Carnaval De Luz a “messy, provocative, sacred” collection, while Bono’s description emphasizes loud guitars, deep bass and rhythmic energy. Rolling Stone’s album report also places those comments inside a record U2 are presenting as both experimental and tightly written.
Among the more specific studio details, The Edge says the sessions include the first use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording.
“Silencio” Keeps the New Song Short
U2 chose one of the album’s shortest tracks to accompany the September 24th announcement.
At 2 minutes and 35 seconds, “Silencio” is unusually compact for a band often associated with gradual builds and expansive choruses. U2 characterize it as surf-punk inspired, while The Guardian describes the track as raucous rock ’n’ roll.
Tedder’s additional production adds another name to a recording otherwise led by Lee. The finished track gives listeners a first taste of the harder rhythmic energy Bono and The Edge have emphasized while discussing the album.
The accompanying video adds a geographic connection. Directors Pasqual Gutiérrez and Raúl “RJ” Sanchez, who work together as Cliqua, filmed it in Mexico City during U2’s visit earlier this year.
“Silencio” is actually the second song released from Carnaval De Luz. “Street of Dreams” arrived July 7th, when U2 confirmed that a still-untitled studio album would follow later in 2026. The July announcement already established that it would be the band’s first full album of new songs in nine years.
September 24th therefore represents the full reveal rather than the first indication that U2 had completed another record: title, release date, tracklist, production credits, collaborators and the larger concept all arrived together.
Three Releases Form One Larger Sequence
Carnaval De Luz also changes how U2’s other 2026 releases fit together.
In February, the band surprise-released Days of Ash, a six-track EP timed to Ash Wednesday. U2 presented it as a collection responding to current events, with songs focused on people confronting war, violence and political upheaval.
The band said at the time that those tracks differed in mood and theme from the studio album being prepared for later in the year. Bono described the songs as “impatient to be out in the world.”
A second six-song EP, Easter Lily, followed during the Easter period. With Carnaval De Luz now formally announced, U2 have connected all three projects through imagery drawn from the Christian liturgical calendar.
Carnival represents celebration before Lent. Days of Ash corresponds to the austerity and reflection that follow, while Easter Lily moves toward Easter and rebirth. The projects were created during the same broad period even though their release order did not follow that chronology.
“Torn” also connects the album and EP material, according to U2, giving the Parton collaboration a structural role beyond simply closing the record.
Across Days of Ash, Easter Lily and Carnaval De Luz, the band says it will have released 24 new songs during 2026. After nearly a decade without a conventional studio album of newly written material, U2’s 50th year has become unusually prolific.
Nine Years Since a Full Album of New Songs
The nine-year description comes with an important qualification. U2 have not been absent from recording since Songs of Experience arrived in December 2017.
In 2023, they released Songs of Surrender, a 40-track project built around newly recorded and substantially rearranged versions of songs from across their catalog. The band has also revisited earlier sessions through archival releases and anniversary projects.
What U2 have not released since 2017 is a complete studio album made up of newly written songs. That is the gap Carnaval De Luz ends.
The intervening years also included a significant change behind the drum kit. Mullen underwent surgery and was unable to participate in U2’s 2023–2024 Sphere residency in Las Vegas, where Bram van den Berg filled in. The 2026 recordings restore the familiar studio lineup of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Mullen.
That makes the timing unusually precise. September 2026 marks 50 years since Mullen’s school notice brought the musicians together in Dublin. U2 directly connects the album announcement with that anniversary rather than treating it as a coincidence.
The record itself is not structured as a retrospective. Eno and Lanois reconnect U2 with collaborators central to some of its most influential albums, while Garrix, Tedder and the Rosalía credit point toward considerably newer areas of contemporary music.
The Tracklist Spans Several U2 Generations
The 12-song running order shows how those contributors are distributed across the album:
- “Go (Carnaval De Luz)”
- “La Reina”
- “Street Of Dreams”
- “The Mirror Maker” (Rosalía)
- “Superficiality”
- “If The World Is At War We Better Not Be”
- “Silencio”
- “The Greatest Show On Earth”
- “Glorify”
- “Midnight Sunshine”
- “Can’t Stop Us Now”
- “Torn” featuring Dolly Parton
Eno’s three credited songs appear at different points rather than forming a separate block. Garrix’s co-write arrives on track nine, the unusual Rosalía credit appears near the beginning, and Parton occupies the closing track.
Island Records will release Carnaval De Luz across multiple physical configurations, including standard vinyl and CD editions, deluxe vinyl and CD box sets and limited vinyl variants. The Island announcement confirms the November 13th date and identifies “Silencio” as the second song released from the record.
The collaborator list also keeps U2’s 50th anniversary album from functioning purely as an exercise in looking backward. Eno and Lanois represent relationships that helped reshape the band decades ago. Lee belongs to a later production period. Garrix and Tedder come from a more contemporary pop and electronic landscape.
“Torn” Became Parton’s Final Recording
The November release will inevitably carry a meaning that did not exist when Parton entered the studio.
Her appearance on “Torn” was conceived as an active collaboration. Parton helped write the song, recorded a new performance and contributed to material specifically intended for Carnaval De Luz. Only afterward did the session become her final recorded vocal.
That separates “Torn” from posthumous releases built from vault recordings, old demos or unfinished performances. U2 did not find an unused Parton vocal and construct a duet around it. She participated in creating the song.
For U2, the recording places an unexpected piece of music history at the end of its first full album of new songs since 2017. The band is marking 50 years together while the final voice joining Bono on the record belongs to an artist whose own recording career began even earlier.
Carnaval De Luz arrives November 13th. “Street of Dreams” and “Silencio” are already out, while “Torn” remains unheard in full. When the album reaches track 12, listeners will be hearing both a new U2 recording and the final studio vocal Dolly Parton left behind.