U2’s new album Carnaval De Luz features Dolly Parton and Bono duet

U2’s new album, Carnaval De Luz, features the late country music genius Dolly Parton duetting with Bono on the album’s final song Torn.Described as “a tender country song detailing broken family ties”, Torn was cowritten by U2, Parton and Johnny McDaidCarnaval De Luz is U2’s first album in nine years and will be released on Friday, November 13th. The title of the record was first revealed to Irish Times journalist Róisín Ingle in her excellent Drummer Seeks Musician podcast. It’s 50 years this week since Larry Mullen first put up a note in Mount Temple Comprehensive School seeking musicians for his new band (as explored in the aforementioned podcast).Carnaval De Luz is created with the help of long-time producer Jacknife Lee and also features musical contributions from veteran U2 collaborators Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. It comes on the heels of two EPs, both released earlier this year, Days of Ash, in which the band credibly re-engaged with a more contemporary sense of political agency and Easter Lily, a reflective rumination on friendship, ageing, faith and death (which this reporter liked an awful lot).READ MOREAt the time of publication, a new track Silencio is being made available on all streaming platforms with an accompanying video shot in Mexico City by Cliqua, aka Pasqual Gutiérrez and Raúl “RJ” Sanchez. They also made the Mexican street-performance themed video for a previous track from the record, the buoyantly twinkly Street of Dreams, which was released on July 7th.The accompanying photos see the besuited band wetting their trouser legs in the shallows of a beach, with Bono clad in a top hat and holding a cane. Classic Bono, really. Definitely the type of thing he got up to around the streets of Ballymun in the 1970s if Róisín Ingle’s podcast is anything to go by. The Edge describes the record like this: “It’s a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs.” And then he goes on to talk about the flat-wound strings he used which is, if my own obsession with guitar string gauges are anything go by, a symptom of late middle age.While Bono says: “Roll up, roll up, roll up.” (That’s the top hat speaking, I reckon.)“Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety… oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors. There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance! ‘Cause in the near distance just outside our carnival of light there are all kinds of creatures… the same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters. “So we make the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier. We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be.” U2. Photograph: Viviane Sassen To which it’s tempting to say: “I’m sorry sir, but this is a Supermacs. Would you like some chips?”Nonetheless, it’s nice to have them back. We live in an age where their post-ironic sincerity fits right in. The arc of history bends towards Bono.