U2 announces Carnaval De Luz album featuring Dolly Parton's final recording

Dolly Parton's final performance

U2 has announced their 16th studio album, Carnaval De Luz, which features the final vocal recording of country music singer Dolly Parton. Parton, who died in August at age 80 following a brief battle with cancer, recorded her duet with Bono in June for the closing country track, Torn. The song explores broken family ties and was co-written by the band, Parton, and Snow Patrol songwriter Johnny McDaid. Daniel Lanois contributed pedal steel guitar, while drummer Larry Mullen Jr. recorded a rhythm part inspired by the Daniel Lanois-produced Bob Dylan song Most of the Time.

Bono described Parton's commitment during recording sessions in interviews for an upcoming feature.

When she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song. And you can hear that. And I can't even listen to it now.

Producer Garret Lee noted that Parton approved the final mix before her death and was pleased with the vocal performance. Bono had initially approached Parton with Irish folk sketches over the telephone before she proposed collaborating on Torn instead. Another posthumous release from Parton, a tribute to the Stanley Brothers titled Bound to Ride, was recorded much earlier, circa 2022.

Structure and musical collaborations

Island Records confirmed the 12-track album will be released on 13 November. Carnaval De Luz is U2's first full-length studio album of new material since 2017, bringing together 24 new songs in 2026 alongside two earlier six-track EPs, Days of Ash and Easter Lily. The release cycle is organized around the liturgical calendar, connecting carnival, Lent, and Easter across the three projects. The band released the single Street of Dreams in July, followed by the punk track Silencio, which arrived alongside a music video filmed in Mexico City with additional production by Ryan Tedder.

Longtime collaborator Brian Eno co-wrote and played synthesizers on three songs, including the opening track Go (Carnaval de Luz), which The Edge described as influenced by Suicide. Electronic producer Martin Garrix co-wrote the track Glorify.

Fifty years of band history

The album rollout coincides with the 50th anniversary of the band's formation in Dublin in September 1976. Larry Mullen Jr. originally placed a handwritten note reading Drummer Seeks Musicians To Form Band on the noticeboard at Mount Temple Comprehensive School. The four members, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Mullen, first played together in Mullen's kitchen on 25 September 1976, subsequently selling 170 million records. The recording sessions mark Mullen's return behind the drum kit following a debilitating neck injury that had interrupted his career.

We hadn't been in a room together in a studio environment for a long time. I couldn't play. I didn't think I'd play again. So there was a renewed energy when we got into the studio.

Bassist Adam Clayton described the 12 songs as the culmination of the work the band has undertaken for 50 years. The Edge noted that the album features the first use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording, while Bono stated that the record combines loud guitars, deep bass, ecstatic rhythms, and silver tears.