Tom Dunne: Stripped-down songs on new U2 album make for great listening   

U2 bring David Letterman around Dublin in a new streaming show, and they also release Songs Of Surrender, an album of 40 reinterpreted tracks from their back catalogue 

U2 release Songs Of Surrender on March 17. Picture: Olaf Heine

In the new U2 film that is coming to Disney+ — U2: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman — Edge asks of their music, “What is left when everything is stripped away?” The answer is this album: Songs of Surrender. It is U2, laid bare.

There’s a lot to take in. Forty career-spanning songs, over four albums, one side for each band member. It’s produced by Bob Ezrin, a producer best known for his work in the 1970s with Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd. His presence is apt here, as this is a ‘School’s Out’ U2.