U2 – Carnaval de Luz: Fifty Years In, and Still Making a Joyful Noise

Don't get it twisted — Carnaval de Luz would not have happened without Larry Mullen Jr.'s pathological need to play the drums in the band he started in 1976. He literally risked paralysis to get back behind the kit when he didn't have to, so beyond celebrating fifty years of U2, their newest album and upcoming Greatest Show On Earth world tour — who else but these guys? — is a testament to his extraordinary devotion to the band. Was it worth the risk?

Well… yeah.

Somehow, fifty years in, they've made an album that sounds far better than it has any right to. One could be forgiven for expecting a few solid tracks amid a so-so muddle. The nice surprise is that Carnaval de Luz is a bright, colourful and interesting album that works remarkably well as a cohesive whole, and does it all in an inoffensive running time of under 50 minutes.

Musically and melodically, it's consistently interesting and memorable. Lyrically, it's more uneven. There are some genuinely great lines alongside some absolute clunkers — for example, literally spelling out the word Superficiality on that tune, which just sounds naff. And the otherwise fine pop song Midnight Sunshine begins as if they've been commissioned to write a song for Sesame Street warning kids about the dangers of nuclear war. But Bono doesn't seem remotely embarrassed about singing any of it, and throughout the collection his voice is in alarmingly fine form. His conviction, combined with the musical sharpness and aliveness of the band, and all its new musical expressionism, somehow carries the whole thing through.

Street of Dreams is a perfect example of songs changing in the context of the albums they occupy. Cheesy, overly engineered, and not enough of a fully realised song as a single, within Carnaval de Luz it becomes a standout track, with Edge's sung introduction a hymnal highlight. There are certainly songs from the EPs released earlier this year, particularly Scars and In a Life, that could have stood in and made Carnaval de Luz sound like a more straightforward U2 rock album. But the choices they've made really do work as a whole.

The last ever Dolly Parton vocal closing a U2 album certainly wasn't on anybody's bingo card for 2026. And while Torn — a joint writing effort between Bono, Parton and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid — might otherwise feel a little ordinary and maudlin, Parton's contribution and Bono's sincerity lift it. It's also inevitably fused with extra poignancy and meaning in light of Parton's death, at 80, earlier this year.

U2 have made so much music over the last fifty years, and developed such a recognisable sound, that they almost can't help referencing and musically calling back to their own work at this point. Thankfully, when they do, it's the highest moments and glory days of Achtung Baby, All That You Can't Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb that get brought forward. None of this is going to persuade their detractors — anybody who already considers Bono a warbling insufferable nuisance won't be swayed by some of his surplus whisperings and mumblings — but the album is so insistingly confident and bright that they might win a few new fans who weren't even born when Beautiful Day first announced itself on the radio.

And by the time they reach the knowingly titled Can't Stop Us Now, with Larry's drumming forcefully front and centre, you can't help thinking that while the sentiment might annoy some people, they're also probably right.

One final thing that's difficult to escape is the album cover's nod to The Beatles' Abbey Road — that little band's last studio album.

So if this is U2 saying goodbye, with Carnaval de Luz — Carnival of Light, by the way, and another hat tip to Beatles fanatics — and the forthcoming carnival on the road, then it's a career high, and the tour is sure to be one hell of a party to go out on.