U2 have released Days Of Ash, a standalone six-track EP arriving ahead of a new studio album due in late 2026. Out now via Island Records, the project gathers five new songs and a poem, framed as an urgent response to the present moment.
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“It’s been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year,” Bono said in a statement, describing the EP as distinct in tone from the forthcoming album. “These songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation. Songs of celebration will follow.”
Larry Mullen Jr. echoed the sentiment, positioning the release as part of a long lineage of engagement. “Going way back to our earliest days, working with Amnesty or Greenpeace, we’ve never shied away from taking a position,” he said. “The way the world is now feels like the right moment.”
Across its six tracks, Days Of Ash traces individual stories shaped by violence and resistance. ‘American Obituary’ responds to the January 2026 shooting of Renée Nicole Macklin Good in Minneapolis, interrogating the language and narratives that followed. ‘Song Of The Future’ honours 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, killed during Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2022. ‘One Life At A Time’ is written for Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, reframing words spoken at his funeral into a fragile assertion of hope.
‘The Tears Of Things’ borrows its title from Franciscan friar Richard Rohr and imagines a dialogue between Michelangelo’s David and his creator, questioning whether resistance must mirror the violence it opposes. Meanwhile, ‘Wildpeace’ features a reading of Yehuda Amichai’s poem by Nigerian artist Adeola of Les Amazones d’Afrique, set to music by U2 and longtime collaborator Jacknife Lee.
The EP closes with ‘Yours Eternally’, a collaboration between Bono, The Edge, Ed Sheeran and Ukrainian musician-turned-soldier Taras Topolia. Written as a letter from a soldier on active duty, the track traces back to Bono and The Edge’s 2022 visit to Kyiv, where they busked in a metro station at the invitation of President Zelensky. A short documentary film directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Ilya Mikhaylus will accompany the song, marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Alongside the EP, U2 revive Propaganda, the band’s original fan zine first launched in 1986. The new 52-page edition, titled Six Postcards From The Present… Wish We Weren’t Here, includes interviews with collaborators, lyrics, band notes and a Q&A with Bono — a nod to their DIY origins reframed for a digital age.
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