{"id":582308,"date":"2026-04-03T06:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582308\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:19:09","slug":"u2-return-with-new-ep-easter-lily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582308\/","title":{"rendered":"U2 Return with New EP Easter Lily"},"content":{"rendered":"

U2<\/a> are back with their second EP of 2026, Easter Lily. The six-tracker follows last month\u2019s Days of Ash<\/a> (which was realeased on Ash Wednesday) and features a new collaboration with Brian Eno<\/a>. Listen to the full EP below.<\/p>\n

Where Days of Ash consisted primarily of songs dedicated to activists who died, including Ren\u00e9e Good and Palestinian No Other Land documentary consultant Awdah Hathaleen, Easter Lily tackles more directly personal territory. The EP\u2019s opener, \u201cSong for Hal,\u201d is dedicated to U2\u2019s late friend and producer Hal Willner<\/a>, who died<\/a> in 2020 from complications brought on by COVID-19. The title is a nod to Patti Smith<\/a>\u2019s 1978 album Easter, which Bono said in a press statement gave him \u201cso much hope\u201d when he first heard it at 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Easter Lily, we ended up asking very personal questions like: Are our own relationships up to these challenging times? How hard do you fight for friendship? Can our faith survive the mangling of meaning that those algorithms love to reward? Is all religion rubbish and still ripping us apart\u2026? Or are there answers to find in its crevices? Are there ceremonies, rituals, dances that we might be missing in our lives?\u201d Bono\u2019s statement continued.<\/p>\n

Eno produced the album\u2019s closing track, \u201cCOEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?),\u201d which the band wrote for the parents of children growing up in war zones. In 2025, all four members of the band\u2014Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.\u2014shared individual statements<\/a> condemning Israel\u2019s starvation of the Gaza strip. They noted as a group: \u201cWe are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Days of Ash, Easter Lily arrives alongside another digital edition<\/a> of the band\u2019s Propaganda zine, which they\u2019ve been publishing since 1986. This issue includes sleeve notes from the Edge, a conversation between Bono and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, an essay from Clayton on \u201cart and the journey of recovery,\u201d and BTS studio photographs taken by Mullen Jr. It also features song lyrics, a memorial essay on Willner, and more.<\/p>\n

Both EPs precede a still-untitled new album from the band, who released their most recent full-length LP, Songs of Surrender<\/a>, in 2023. The new record is set to come out in late 2026. \u201cWe are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, \u2018unreasonably colourful\u2019 album to play LIVE\u2026which is where U2 lives,\u201d Bono said. \u201cWe still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure \u2018wilderness years\u2019 for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read about U2\u2019s The Joshua Tree at No. 47 in The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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