U2 dropped a surprise EP on Ash Wednesday. Thus begins the comeback. [SPOILER: It’s very good.]

February 19, 2026 Alan Cross 0 Comments 2 min read

It’s been forever (well, 2017) since U2 released anything more than a new single or some reimagined recordings of old songs. Yesterday, though (Ash Wednesday, February 18), U2 released the appropriately entitled Days of Ash. It’s subtitled Six Postcards from the Present…Wish We Weren’t Here.

It consists of five new tracks (one featuring Ed Sheeran) and one musical poem. And you wanna know something? It’s good. This is how it should be done. The release was a complete surprise, reminiscent of the Zooropa album, which showed up out of nowhere in July 1993.

It’s another example of some of the politcally-charted things we’ve seen this year. Bono goes after Netanyahu, Putin, ICE, the rise of fascism, and more. Hey, it starts with a track called “American Obituary,” which, like several previous U2 songs, both praises and demonizes the US. It’s the angriest thing they’ve done in years.

The Edge says: “We believe in a world where borders are not erased by force./Where culture, language, and memory are not silenced by fear./Where the dignity of a people is not negotiable./This belief isn’t temporary./It isn’t political fashion./It’s the ground we stand on.”

Bono: “It’s been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year… the songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme to the ones we’re going to put on our album later in the year. These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation. Songs of celebration will follow, we’re working on those now… because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there’s nothing normal about these mad and maddening times and we need to stand up to them before we can go back to having faith in the future. And each other.

“If you have a chance to hope it’s a duty…” is a line we borrowed from Lea Ypi.

“A laugh would be nice too. Thank you.”

Check out U2’s “Propaganda” site, too. There’s more to this release than just what we hear. All the songs have videos and there are band interviews along with song lyrics. And this isn’t a taster for a new album. It’s a political manifesto about what’s happening on the planet right now.

Earlier this year, I predicted a return of U2 in 2026. I didn’t have any inside information, but I could…feel it. There’s more coming, with an album due later this year. This EP is grounds for optimism.

Tracklisting: