U2 Carnaval de Luz review — U2’s 16th studio album, Carnaval de Luz, arrives as the band’s first collection of original songs in nearly a decade, and it makes a clear case that the Dublin quartet is not ready to fade. The album is tight, melodic, and deliberately cohesive, a sharp contrast to the sprawl of 2017’s Songs of Experience, which carried nine credited producers and drifted in too many directions. This time, working largely with producer Jacknife Lee, U2 kept things relatively simple and came out sounding refreshed.
A Concept That Circles Back
Carnaval de Luz is built as an ambitious conceptual arc, drawing together the previously released EPs Days of Ash and Easter Lily. The title references Brazil’s colorful festival before Lent—a fitting frame for a band raised Catholic and familiar with Ash Wednesday and Easter. The sequencing rewards close listening: the final track, “Coexist,” closes with the same analog-synth notes that open the album, looping the cycle. A deluxe edition pairs the full-length with both EPs, making the larger statement available in one place.
Big, Bright Pop With Silver Linings
The central theme, as the songs present it, is that it is not too late. Not too late to party, to find God, to show empathy, to rescue a relationship, to save the world, or simply to keep going. Each track is short and punchy, and the music leans toward big, bright pop rather than the blues or the stadium-sized anthems that made the band’s legend. There are more silver linings than clouds, and only a few minor keys.
The album opens with “Go,” a dance-rock anthem that runs under three minutes and fuses Nile Rodgers-style disco guitar with Suicide-inspired keys. “La Reina” and “Street of Dreams” borrow the spirit of Latin pop without becoming Latin pop, though “Street of Dreams” carries a little hip-hop. On “The Mirror Maker (Rosalía),” the Edge windmills through acoustic and electric chords with a Pete Townshend-like attack. “Can’t Stop Us Now” rides a propulsive, march-like rhythm from Larry Mullen Jr. The best song, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” benefits from an ambient soundscape assisted by Brian Eno, who produced The Joshua Tree, while still fitting the lean, hook-focused character of the rest of the record.
The EPs and the Larger Argument
The connected EPs give the album extra weight. Days of Ash includes the punk-leaning “American Obituary,” which mourns the death of Renée Good at the hands of an ICE agent, and the Roy Orbison-like “The Tears of Things,” which obliquely addresses the divide between Gaza and Israel. Easter Lily, the stronger of the two, offers “Song for Hal,” a classic-sounding U2 track about never feeling alone, and “In a Life,” which brings traditional U2 drama and sparkling guitar.
Taken as a whole, the project pushes back against pop-culture doomsaying. U2’s long-standing message of peace, hope, and love remains intact, but the delivery here is lighter and more fun than it has been in years. Bono still reaches for universal truths—”Nobody is alone but nobody knows that” on “La Reina”—and occasionally lands on something a little corny, as when he sings about “sing-a-ling the reggaeton” on the same song. The band sounds like itself whenever the Edge’s guitar echoes and chimes, when Adam Clayton’s bass stabs and undulates, and when Mullen locks into a driving rhythm.
Why It Works
The album succeeds because U2 is not trying too hard. The songs never recall “Pride (in the Name of Love),” “One,” or “Stuck in a Moment,” but they sound unmistakably like U2. At sixtysomething, the members answer the question B.B. King once posed in Rattle and Hum—what is he trying to do at his age?—by showing they are nowhere near a finish line. Carnaval de Luz is a focused, revitalized return that argues for hope without ignoring the darkness, and it makes the case that the band’s best instincts remain intact.