U2: Luz Carnival Review – The crazy diamonds of Irish rock shine brighter than ever – The Irish Times

It’s been so long since U2 were widely considered artistically relevant that it’s jarring to release their new album and discover that these Dublin punks turned stadium giants still have something to say.

In fact, they have a lot to say through an LP that is easily their best since How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which they released in 2004. It effectively erases their many missteps since then. No line on the horizon; the Apple gift that no one asked for; Bono and Edge’s lockdown project where they basically spray-painted graffiti on their catalog: it’s like they never happened.

Carnaval de Luz means Carnival of Light in Spanish and Portuguese, and it is, in essence, the “Unos, dos, tres, catorce” pronounced in the intro to Vertigo, their last major hit, stretched into an entire album.

This may seem like the last desperate gasp of empty relics, but in practice it is exactly the opposite. It’s hard to remember a time since the turn of the century when U2 have sounded so invigorated, so depleted and so on top of themselves.

Bono comes across as particularly light-hearted when he spouts nonsense lyrics that are loaded with portent but ultimately add up to a whole lot of sweet nothingness.

This is truly Edge’s album, from the guttural intro of Zoo Station to the album’s opening track, Go (Carnaval de Luz), to the brilliantly breathy riff of La Reina – this is where the LP steps on the accelerator and picks up speed.

That momentum continues on the groove-filled The Mirror Maker (Rosalía), which pays homage to the Catalan pop star, and Superficiality, a track that brings back Bono’s much-underrated falsetto, a squeak that peaked with 1993’s Lemon, and now makes a glorious return.

Thematically, the record is a bit all over the place. Its real reason for being might simply be to leverage U2’s legacy into its upcoming world tour, news of which, with its exorbitant, Oasis-style ticket prices, has already gone viral.

If the album has a centerpiece, it’s the bittersweet ballad The Greatest Show on Earth, in which Bono compares a failed romance to the efforts of keeping a band on the road. (Brian Eno, who is also one of the song’s writers, plays synthesizer; the entire album is produced by Jacknife Lee.) The defining register here is boredom, as the narrator looks back on the glory days and wonders if he can ever reach those heights again.

It makes perfect sense that Bono might have worried that U2’s best days were over. In their later albums, U2 seemed burdened by the dead weight of their own U2 identity. The group seemed so obsessed with being the greatest in the world that they stopped enjoying it. And when the musicians stop having fun, the audience is sure to follow them.

But here they are light. It’s striking to consider that Carnaval de Luz is far more carefree and immediate than Dopamine Chamber, the sinister and inert LP that Fontaines DC, their fellow Dublin stadium-fillers, released last month.

( Dopamine Chamber is the sound of Fontaines DC becoming megastars. Is bigger always better?Opens in a new window )

Striking but not really shocking. That U2 have returned to something vaguely close to their best was signaled earlier this year when they released two fun EPs, Days of Ash and Easter Lily.

These records suggest that Bono, Edge, Larry Mullen jnr and Adam Clayton have followed the familiar path by which musicians of a certain age – they are now in their sixties – are able to reconnect with their youth and reconnect with the urgency that motivated their early work.

This remains the case even during the emotional coda that is Bono’s duet with Dolly Parton on Torn, recorded months before his death and featuring the tender pedal steel of the band’s longtime collaborator Daniel Lanois.

Of course, this ultimately remains a U2 album, for better and sometimes for worse. There are occasional moments of pomposity, and Bono’s voice will forever be a holdover from the 1980s. (It’s hard to listen to him without being back in the Band Aid booth as he yells, “Tonight, thank God, it’s them instead of yooooooooou.”)

But even the bonoisms cannot harm the energy which surges on the record. After everything they went through, U2 found their musical relevance again. During this Carnival of Light, the crazy diamonds of Irish rock shine brighter than ever.

Carnival de Luz is released by Island Records on Friday, November 13

( U2 Podcast: Drummer Seeks Musicians – the story of U2’s beginningsOpens in a new window )