U2 fill in the picture on Carnaval de Luz

U2 have filled in the remaining detail on *Carnaval de Luz*, their sixteenth studio album, due on 13 November 2026. The album title, release date and the single Silencio were already public; what arrives now is the full twelve-track running order, the production credits and a pair of descriptions from Bono and the Edge that set the tone for the first full-length set of new U2 songs in nine years.

The record was produced by Jacknife Lee. Brian Eno co-writes and contributes synths on three tracks. Martin Garrix takes a writing credit on Glorify. Ryan Tedder adds production on Silencio. Daniel Lanois plays pedal steel on Torn, and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid co-writes that closing song. The album continues the liturgical-calendar thread begun on the 2026 EPs *Days of Ash* and *Easter Lily*. Its unveiling also fell in the week of the band's fiftieth anniversary: Larry Mullen Jr posted the original audition notice in Dublin on 25 September 1976.

Loud guitars and a sacred mess

Bono has called *Carnaval de Luz* "anarchic", with "loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms". The Edge has called it "a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs". The punk-leaning single Silencio has already been released; its video was directed by Cliqua.

The tracklist runs: 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; and Torn (feat. Dolly Parton). Rosalía appears on The Mirror Maker. Torn ends the album as a duet between Bono and the late Dolly Parton, the final vocal she recorded.

From Boy to the new songs

U2 formed in Dublin in 1976 and have kept the same four-piece line-up — Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr — ever since. Rooted at first in post-punk, they built an anthemic style on Bono's voice and the Edge's chiming, effects-heavy guitar, with lyrics that often carry spiritual and sociopolitical weight. The early studio run took in *Boy* in 1980, *October* in 1981, *War* in 1983, *The Unforgettable Fire* in 1984, and the live set *Under a Blood Red Sky* from the same era. Elaborate tours have been central to the group's reputation across the decades that followed.

More recently the catalogue has taken in the 2023 reworking project *Songs of Surrender*, the 2023 single Atomic City, the 2025 *Stories Of Surrender* EP with the Jacknife Lee Ensemble, and the 2026 EP *Days Of Ash*. Jacknife Lee's return as producer on *Carnaval de Luz* therefore continues an existing collaboration rather than beginning one. What the new album restores, after nine years without a full set of original studio songs, is a complete long-form statement rather than revisits or shorter releases.

No live dates have been announced. The fixed points remain the 13 November release, the twelve songs, and a cast of collaborators that mixes long-standing associates — Eno, Lanois, Lee — with Garrix, Tedder, McDaid and Rosalía, and with Parton giving her final recorded vocal. For a band marking fifty years, *Carnaval de Luz* is the next chapter of new work, not a retrospective.