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JAKARTA – Bono sings “The past and me have got to break up” in the opening verse of Go (Carnaval de Luz), which marks U2‘s first full-length album of all-new material in nine years. Naturally, this opening line sounds like a clear mission statement. However, the singer does not spend much time fighting nostalgia or breaking old habits. Still, if you read any U2 interviews from this century, you know the band constantly fights with its legacy and searches for ways to stay relevant. In fact, they wrestle with their past just like Jacob wrestled the angel in Bullet the Blue Sky. Moreover, the band often overthinks everything. Consequently, impatient fans frequently want to tell the group to simply put down their pencils and turn in their work.
Fortunately, the band finally took that advice with Carnaval de Luz, creating an imperfect yet rewarding addition to their 46-year catalog. In a “liner notebook” that accompanies the album, Bono jokes that a frontman must put the messy into the messianic. Indeed, plenty of messiness fills these 12 songs. Although the tracks do not always form neat statements, they offer hundreds of memorable, funny, and deeply poetic lines. Specifically, Bono writes as if he tossed a year’s worth of TED talks about God, the devil, love, ego, and shared humanity into a blender. Furthermore, the lyrics follow a clear direction rather than appearing at random. For instance, Bono uses many Spanish phrases, and the album loosely follows the theme of Latin America’s pre-Lent celebrations. Similarly, U2 tied the two EPs they released earlier this year to Ash Wednesday and Easter. Ultimately, the band built this album by gathering the songs that best fit a carnaval theme. As a result, this record stands as a complex “party album” packed with clever sayings about philosophy and pop theology.
On the other hand, you might not care about Bono’s spiritual journey. Instead, you probably want to know if the album truly rocks with more confidence than the radio-friendly records they released in the 2000s and 2010s. Overall, the album delivers that rock energy. Furthermore, its rock sound mirrors U2’s ’90s style rather than copying their famous ’80s hits. For example, one of the catchiest tracks, La Reina, borrows heavily from the ’90s and closely copies the style of “Even Better Than the Real Thing”. However, if you welcome this ’90s throwback, you will find plenty to enjoy here. First, the album opens with Go (Carnaval de Luz), which takes inspiration from the band Suicide and sounds like a punk version of techno-“Pop”. Finally, the record closes with “Torn,” a duet with country legend Dolly Parton. Notably, Parton recorded this track as her final song, stepping into the same guest role that Johnny Cash filled on Zooropa.
Meanwhile, the band plays with impressive energy during their 50th anniversary. Nevertheless, the album’s true success depends on how much you enjoy Bono at his most unfiltered.
Above all, you should save your tissues for the Dolly Parton duet. Originally, Parton started writing Torn about a love triangle. Later, Bono reshaped it into a ballad about a mother mourning the rift between two fighting sons. Parton recorded her vocals just three months before she entered hospice care, yet she sings with immense power in the song’s final moments. Simultaneously, Bono matches her energy, and their voices blend together seamlessly. Suddenly, any worries about U2’s modern relevance vanish. Whether through a final duet with Parton or Bono’s verse-by-verse reflections, nobody explores human mortality better than U2.
