In a surprise move, U2 released a six-song EP on Ash Wednesday 2026 of all-new material, nine years after their last release of new songs (the dishwater-dull Songs of Experience). The EP is not a preview of the eventual new album; the band has said none of these songs will appear on it.
Instead, it is an of-the-moment response to the violence against three different people in 2025/26 for various reasons—Renee Good, Sarina Esmailzadeh and Awdah Hathaleen. The songs are a direct response to the religious and political violence that seems to have increased worldwide in the last couple of years.
This is of course not new territory for U2, which has been writing (off and on) about such things since 1980, so any conservatives who blame the band for “going woke” or other nonsense can just sit down. Moreover, this is a direct and necessary response from a band that felt compelled to say something, which is a feat considering how long the band waits between releases. So, one may wonder… why now? Why is this moment so critical that U2 couldn’t wait any longer and had rush out an EP?
That’s a debate for another day and not the purpose of a music review, though one can and should argue that politics and music have always been intertwined, at least since the first folk protest and blues songs from 100 years ago. Easily-offended conservatives tend to forget that and lean into the “shut up and do your job, nobody cares about your opinion” camp, although of course they don’t say that when someone famous agrees with 
their opinion. The story on Good was equally convoluted when it happened; we couldn’t even agree on the basic facts of what occurred, so half the people were convinced Good was trying to run an ICE officer over with her vehicle and he acted in self-defense, and half the people saw her attempting to drive away and an offended officer shooting her—twice—through the windows, instead of shooting the car or reacting in any other way.
Good was present in Minneapolis during the ICE immigration officer deployments to that city, which was one of many incidents that sparked a national firestorm about the tactics ICE was using to find and deport undocumented immigrants. Sarina Esmailzadeh was an Iranian teenager killed in 2022 for peaceful protests against the oppressive Iranian regime; her death was of course reported as a “suicide.” Hathaleen was a Palestinian activist killed by an Israeli settler in 2024 in the West Bank.
These are heavy topics, and U2 doesn’t shy away from them, though the lyrics are more for calls of peace than taking sides (another Bono specialty, by and large). Hathaleen is immortalized (sort of ) in “One Life At A Time,” Sarina in “Song Of The Future” and Good in “American Obituary.” Of the other songs, “The Tears Of Things” imagines the statue of David coming to life and reacting to the violence committed in the name of religion since his death; and “Yours Eternally” is a nonspecific road-trip/companionship song (with Ed Sheeran providing the counterpoint to Bono).
Musically, no new ground is broken here; the sound is akin to most everything the band has done since 2003, unfortunately falling into the sort of generic U2 sound that has littered their discography in the new millennium. For music this lyrically and politically charged, one would hope the music would also rise to the level, but there are few earworms and even after it plays it’s difficult to remember specific riffs or melodies. The lone exception is “Song Of The Future,” which uses vocal harmonies and other tricks to create a sense of urgency and will remain lodged in the memory like the best of latter-day U2.
Obviously, before any conservatives start becoming keyboard warriors to flame this review, Bono could have chosen to write about Laken Riley, any innocent Israelis who died at the hands of terrorists, any deaths in the Russia/Ukraine war, any school shooting victims of the last few years, or anyone who has died in the current Sudan conflict. But that’s the point. There is so much violence and unrest and political/religious hatred right now. Bono picked three cases to call out, with the overarching message simply asking for peace and diplomacy and anything that doesn’t involve killing those who disagree with you… or even thinking that’s an okay option and then just moving on with your day. It’s a message both timely and timeless, a feat U2 is able to pull off lyrically, if not musically, making this a flawed but compelling entry in their long discography.