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To coincide with Ash Wednesday, U2<\/a> have surprise-released a new EP titled Days of Ash<\/em><\/a>. The six-track EP includes one poem by Yehuda Amichai and five new songs by the band, one of which features Ed Sheeran<\/a> and Taras Topolia, the Ukrainian singer who they performed with in a Kyiv bomb shelter<\/a> in 2022. You can listen to it below.<\/p>\n U2 got back together over the past year to record what would become Days of Ash<\/em>. Most of the EP\u2019s songs are about real individuals whose lives were cut short, including Minneapolis mother Ren\u00e9e Good, Iranian schoolgirl Sarina Esmailzadeh, and Palestinian father and No Other Land<\/em> documentary consultant Awdah Hathaleen. \u201cYours Eternally\u201d will also get a short documentary directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Ilya Mikhaylus, which will be released next week on the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe songs on Days of Ash<\/em> are very different in mood and theme to the ones we\u2019re going to put on our album later in the year,\u201d Bono<\/a> said in a press release. \u201cThese EP tracks couldn\u2019t 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\u2019re working on those now\u2026 because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n U2 are also releasing a new Propaganda<\/em><\/a> zine, the band\u2019s long-running print series that they started back in 1986. The new issue, U2 – Days of Ash: Six Postcards From The Present\u2026 Wish We Weren\u2019t Here<\/em>, is a 52-page publication that includes song lyrics, notes from each member of U2, a Q&A with Bono, and exclusive interviews with \u2018Yours Eternally\u2019 film director Ilya Mikhaylus, film producer Pyotr Verzilov, and musician and soldier Taras Topolia. The Propaganda<\/em> zine is available digitally<\/a> and as a limited-edition print run.<\/p>\n U2\u2019s as-yet-untitled new album will follow their 2023 full-length Songs of Surrender<\/em><\/a> and is slated for release in late 2026. Last year, Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. each published their own statement<\/a> on Israel\u2019s ongoing starvation of the Gaza Strip. \u201cEveryone has long been horrified by what is unfolding in Gaza – but the blocking of humanitarian aid and now plans for a military takeover of Gaza City has taken the conflict into uncharted territory,\u201d they also wrote in a joint statement. \u201cWe are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand.\u201d<\/p>\n Read about Achtung Baby<\/em><\/a> at No. 118 in The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n