U2’s First Album in Nine Years, ‘Carnaval De Luz,’ Will Feature a Dolly Parton Duet With Bono, Said to Be Her Last Recorded Vocal

It has been nearly a decade since U2 released a full-length studio album, but that drought is about to end. On Thursday, Interscope Records confirmed that Carnaval De Luz, the Irish group's first proper LP in nine years, will arrive on Nov. 12. For a quartet whose anthemic, stadium-sized sound has defined arena rock since the 1980s, the gap between original records is among the longest of their career.

The closing track is a duet with country legend Dolly Parton titled Torn, described in a press release as her last recorded vocal performance. Co-written by U2, Parton and Johnny McDaid, the song is a tender country ballad about fractured family bonds, and its emotional resonance reaches beyond the lyrics themselves. Daniel Lanois, the acclaimed producer and longtime U2 associate, contributes pedal steel guitar. Parton, an 11-time Grammy winner and Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, has recorded with everyone from Kenny Rogers to Pentatonix across a career exceeding five decades. Her involvement lends the album a cross-generational weight that few rock records can claim.

Accompanying Thursday's announcement was a new single, Silencio, released to digital platforms. At two minutes and 35 seconds, it channels the irreverent energy of early surf-punk. The music video was filmed in Mexico City earlier this year and directed by Cliqua, the Mexican-American duo of Pasqual Gutiérrez and Raúl "RJ" Sanchez. The album cover shows the band walking single file along the shoreline, an image that might just earn the nickname Abbey Beach.

The 12-track record explores spirituality, friendship, freedom and resilience against encroaching darkness, and was produced by Jacknife Lee, a frequent U2 studio collaborator. Other contributors include Brian Eno, who co-wrote and played synthesizer on Go (Carnaval De Luz), The Greatest Show on Earth and Can't Stop Us Now; Martin Garrix, who co-wrote Glorify; and Lanois on pedal steel for Torn. Ryan Tedder provided additional production on Silencio. Frontman Bono, 64, delivered a typically theatrical statement: "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!" He continued: "Cause 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."

The Edge put it more bluntly: "It's a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs — and features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording. Just saying." Despite the long silence since their last album, U2 has hardly been idle. The band surprise-released two digital-only EPs, Days of Ash and Easter Lily, each containing six songs, timed to Ash Wednesday and Easter respectively. Since none of those tracks appear on the new album, U2 will have issued 24 songs within a single calendar year by the time Carnaval De Luz lands — a fitting nod to the band's 50th anniversary. The first single, Street of Dreams, actually arrived in July, though the project remained officially unannounced at that point. The full track listing for Carnaval De Luz is: