Carnaval de Luz
Artist: U2
Label: Island Records
It’s so long since U2 were widely considered artistically relevant that it’s jolting to slap on their new album and discover that these Dublin punks turned stadium behemoths still have something to say.
Actually, they have a lot to say across an LP that is easily their best since How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which they released in 2004. It effectively obliterates their many missteps since then. No Line on the Horizon; the Apple giveaway nobody asked for; the Bono and Edge lockdown project where they essentially sprayed graffiti over their back catalogue: it’s as if they never happened.
Carnaval de Luz means Carnival of Light in Spanish and Portuguese, and it is, in essence, the “Unos, dos, tres, catorce” spoken intro to Vertigo, their last hit song of consequence, stretched out into an entire album.
That might sound like the desperate last gasp of relics running empty, but in practice it’s precisely the opposite. It’s hard to recall a moment since the turn of the century when U2 have sounded so invigorated, so unburdened and so over themselves.
Bono comes across as especially weightless as he fires off nonsense lyrics that are loaded with portent but ultimately add up to a whole lot of sweet nothingness.
This is really Edge’s album, from the guttural Zoo Station-esque intro to the album’s opening track, Go (Carnaval de Luz), to the brilliantly chugging riff on La Reina – which is when the LP cranks the throttle and picks up speed.
That momentum continues on the groove-fuelled The Mirror Maker (Rosalía), which pays tribute to the Catalan pop star, and on Superficiality, a stomper of a tune that brings back the much-underrated Bono falsetto, a squeak that peaked with Lemon, in 1993, and now makes a glorious return.
Thematically the record is a bit all over the place. Its true raison d’etre may simply be to leverage U2’s legacy into their upcoming world tour, news of which, with its eye-watering, Oasis-esque ticket prices, has already gone viral.
If the album has a centrepiece it’s the bittersweet ballad The Greatest Show on Earth, where Bono compares a failing romance to the effort to keep a band on the road. (Brian Eno, who is also one of the song’s writers, plays synthesiser on it; the album in its entirety is produced by Jacknife Lee.) Here the defining register is ennui, as the narrator looks back on the glory days and wonders if they can ever reach those peaks again.
It makes perfect sense that Bono might have fretted that U2’s best days were over. In their later albums, U2 have sounded burdened by the deadweight of their own U2-ness. The band seemed so obsessed with being the biggest in the world that they stopped enjoying it. And when the musicians stop having fun, the audience is sure to follow.
But here they are light on their feet. It is striking to consider that Carnaval de Luz is so much more carefree and immediate than Dopamine Chamber, the portentous and inert LP that Fontaines DC, their fellow Dublin stadium-fillers, released last month.
Striking but not much of a shock. That U2 were back to something vaguely approximating their best was signalled earlier this year when they released two fun EPs, Days of Ash and Easter Lily.
Those records suggested that Bono, Edge, Larry Mullen jnr and Adam Clayton had followed the familiar route whereby musicians of a certain age – they’re now in their 60s – are able to reconnect with their younger selves and plug back into the urgency that drove their early work.
That remains the case even during the emotional coda that is Bono’s duet with Dolly Parton on Torn, recorded months before her death and featuring tender pedal steel from the band’s long-time collaborator Daniel Lanois.
Of course this is still ultimately a U2 album, for better and sometimes for worse. There are occasional moments of pomposity, and Bono’s vocals will forever be a holdover from the 1980s. (It’s hard to listen to him without being back in the Band Aid booth as he yowls, “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of yooooooou.”)
But not even Bonoisms can detract from the energy that bursts through the record. After all they’ve been through, U2 have found their way back to musical relevance. On this Carnival of Light, Irish rock’s crazy diamonds shine on brighter than ever.
Carnaval de Luz is released by Island Records on Friday, November 13th