Tom Dunne: U2 have suddenly woken up to the fact they have a lot to say

A still from one of the lyrics videos U2 posted on Youtube to accompany their surprise EP release 'Days of Ash' which dropped on Ash Wednesday, February 18. Picture: U2/Youtube

U2 are back. All guns blazing — target acquired, no prisoners taken. Bono is focused, passionate, driven, The Edge’s guitar is soaring, Adam’s bass driving relentlessly, and Larry Mullen Jr is back to what he does best  — kickstarting buses. Where has this U2 been?

Days of Ash: Six Postcards from the Present... Wish We Weren't Here arrived on Ash Wednesday. 

Bono describes the six tracks as an “immediate response to current events” that simply “couldn’t wait". That energy, that sense of urgency, the sense of needing to say what simply must be said informs every track. 

It might have been War since we’ve last heard them so urgent.

The opening track,  American Obituary, follows on from Springsteen’s Streets of Minnesota in addressing the shooting dead of Renée Good in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. 

It sounds like the U2 of old: Edgy — literally — and angry. A mother of three, shot three times, “a bullet for each child". No punches pulled.

Song of the Future honours the life of Sarina Esmailzadeh, one of the thousands of Iranian schoolgirls who took to the street to protest as part of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022. 

Beaten by the Iranian security forces, she died from her injuries. The regime claimed she killed herself. She was 16.

Wildpeace is a poem by Israeli author and poet Yehudi Amichi read by Nigerian artist Adeola of Les Amazones d’Afrique. 

One Life at a Time is written for Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian father of three and a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, who was killed by Israeli settler Yinon Levi on July 28, 2025.

The cover of Days Of Ash, by U2.

It is the current world in all its grotesque reality. There is no shirking. Names and dates are supplied because these events are playing out nightly on our screens. We are all bearing witness to horrific events. It’s good to hear one of our most talented and insightful bands wrestle with those truths.

The EP proper will be released on February 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The sixth track, Yours Eternally, features Taras Topilia, the Ukrainian musician turned soldier who Bono and The Edge met while busking in Kyiv at the invitation of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Taras, Bono, and The Edge have been friends ever since.

February 24 will also see the release of a  four-minute documentary directed by the Ukrainian cinematographer and filmmaker Ilya Mikhaylus. Shot in December 2025 while Mikhaylus was embedded with the 40,000-strong Khartiya Corps, it captures the day-to-day life and bravery of soldiers on the frontline of war.

All of this might seem like a lot. 

That U2 have suddenly exploded back into life with a vitality and purpose we suspected they might have lost. I must admit I am not surprised.

I felt it on Bono’s one-man show, in interviews, and in his memoir. There was unfinished business. The “greatest kick ass band in the world” weren’t done yet. There was a lot of life in that old dog.

The press release describes the EP as “standalone” and intimates that it is be quite different to the new album that hits later this year. I really hope that isn’t the case. I’ll gladly sign up for 12 more tracks like this.

So many bands make a great noise but fall short because all too often they have nothing to say. U2 seem to have suddenly woken up to the fact that they have a lot to say and there are few bands who, in full flight, can say it so eloquently and so powerfully. The beast awakes.