U2 Reveal New Album With Bono and Dolly Parton Duet

U2 have announced their first album of new material in eight years, Carnaval de Luz, featuring a posthumous duet between Bono and Dolly Parton.

The 12-track album is due for release on Friday, 13 November, with Parton appearing on Torn, a country-influenced song about broken family ties. The track was co-written by U2, Parton and Snow Patrol songwriter Johnny McDaid.

Parton died in August at the age of 80 following a "brief battle with cancer."

Carnaval de Luz marks U2's first album of new material since 2017's Songs of Experience. The album's first single, Street of Dreams, was released in July, while the latest single, Silencio, has just been released.

According to the band, the album explores themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom and endurance "in the face of dark, encroaching forces."

The announcement comes 50 years after U2 formed in Dublin. In September 1976, drummer Larry Mullen Jr reportedly pinned a handwritten note to the noticeboard at Mount Temple Comprehensive School reading: "Drummer Seeks Musicians To Form Band."

Discussing the new record, Bono said: *"Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety... oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors.

"There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms, and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance!

"Because in the near distance, just outside our carnival of light, there are all kinds of creatures... the same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters.

"So we make the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier.

"We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be."*

Guitarist The Edge described Carnaval de Luz as "a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs" and revealed that it features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording.

The full tracklisting is:

1. Go (Carnaval de Luz)

2. La Reina

3. Street of Dreams

4. The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)

5. Superficiality

6. If the World Is at War, We Better Not Be

7. Silencio

8. The Greatest Show on Earth

9. Glorify

10. Midnight Sunshine

11. Can't Stop Us Now

12. Torn (Feat. Dolly Parton)

Carnaval de Luz will be released on Friday, 13 November.