I didn’t find what I was looking for in U2’s new EP “Days of Ash.” All six songs hit false notes lyrically and musically. Even U2 fans will want to toss this album on the ash heap of disappointment.
The album’s political charge is classic for U2. Starting with the band’s release of “War” in 1983, its music has acted as a banner of protest and awareness.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” one of the band’s best-known songs, is written from the perspective of an observer of the massacre of unarmed Irish civilians by British soldiers in 1972.
“The Troubles” also addresses the violence of the Irish Troubles. “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Silver and Gold,” “Please,” and many more out of more than 400 released songs speak to issues of the time.
“Days of Ash” is not simply political. It is lukewarm and cliché. Not to mention uninformed and unnuanced.
The first song of the album is “American Obituary,” and it is about the death of Renee Good in Minnesota on Jan. 7, 2026. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot her after she allegedly tried to run over him with her vehicle. Bono, the band’s frontman, sings about Good as a kind of martyr, when in fact she may have been a provocateur. Opinions may differ on exactly what happened and where the blame lies, but Bono gives us a thoughtless polemic rather than a tragedy.
“Renee Good born to die free / American mother of three / Seventh day January / A bullet for each child, you see / The color of her eye / 930 Minneapolis / To desecrate domestic bliss / Three bullets blast, three babies kissed / Renee the domestic terrorist?” he sings.
Regardless of whether you think that the ICE agent should have shot Good, this exaggerated picture of the woman that continues through the song is propaganda rather than protest, pulling for an emotional reaction from inaccurate facts.
But the banality of the sentiments and the writing is more tedious than the political perspective.
Bono sings, “The power of the people is so much stronger / than the people in power / The power of the people is so much stronger / than the people in power / The power of the people is so much stronger / than the people in power.”
It seems Bono chose to write almost entirely in meaningless platitudes.
The refrain of “American Obituary” is abstract and ridiculous. It repeats, “I love you more / Than hate loves war / I love you more / Than hate loves war.”
Each of the following songs join the first in repetitive lyrics that barely mean anything but carry vague feelings of peace and love.
The music itself is also underwhelming. “Wildpeace” is a spoken poem with an ambiguous background synth. “The Tears of Things,” “Song of the Future,” and “One Life at a Time” all sound like they could be any U2 song. They have some of the elements we’ve come to expect from U2 songs, but none are distinct or interesting.
The only song that seems at all different for U2 is “Yours Eternally” featuring Ed Sheeran. This song is only distinct because instead of sounding like any other U2 song, it sounds like an Ed Sheeran song.
“These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world,” Bono said, according to the U2 website. “They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation.”
The defiance, dismay, and lamentation Bono wanted to convey ring false and hollow. U2 has a full album coming out later this year. Maybe these more patient songs will be better.
Within its mediocre lyrics and mushy political sentiment, “Days of Ash” lacks a single song worth listening to.
Bono needs to take the advice from one of the later songs in the album, “One Life at a Time,” in which he sings, “What you see depends on where you stand.” On this album, he makes it clear that he looks at America from the perspective of a rich European rock star.
