Backseat Mafia reports that U2 have announced the UK and European leg of their 2027 tour, 'Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth', alongside the album's third single of the same name.

The band call the title a dare 'to ourselves as much as anyone, to try and have the best night of anybody's life.'

The album 'Carnaval De Luz', their 16th studio record and first full album of new material in nine years, lands 13 November via Island Records, produced by Jacknife Lee and conceived as a prequel to this year's two church-timed EPs.

According to Backseat Mafia, the 12-track record reaches back to the band's experimental streak while guests stack up: Brian Eno co-writes and plays synths on three songs, Martin Garrix co-writes 'Glorify', Rosalía is credited on 'The Mirror Maker', and Daniel Lanois adds pedal steel to the closer.

That closing track, 'Torn', is a duet with the late Dolly Parton that Backseat Mafia says turned out to be her final recorded vocal — a tender country song about fractured family ties that gives the album what the outlet calls a poignant full stop.

There is even a two-and-a-half-minute surf-punk blast called 'Silencio'.

Backseat Mafia notes these will be U2's first stadium shows since The Joshua Tree Tour wrapped in Mumbai in December 2019, with the 40-night Sphere residency in Las Vegas in between resetting expectations of the band's productions.

The European leg opens in Stockholm on 26 April with Wolf Alice in support, hitting Stade de France, Estádio da Luz, two nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Berlin's Olympiastadion and San Siro.

The Latin American run with Beck has already sold out first shows, prompting extra dates in Mexico City, São Paulo and Buenos Aires. General sale opens Friday 6 November at 10am at u2.com.

The Edge, quoted by Backseat Mafia, says a 2028 leg is still being figured out but 'we'll be wrapping it up in Ireland. There's nowhere else we'd want to be for that party.'

It caps an extraordinary 50th-anniversary year the outlet describes: two surprise six-track EPs in 'Days of Ash' and 'Easter Lily', a lunchtime set for students at their old school Mount Temple Comprehensive, and a surprise Grafton Street performance — meaning 24 new songs by the time the album arrives.

Elsewhere in the pack, That Eric Alper reports Lady A released 'Bigger Picture' after Charles Kelley's cancer diagnosis, a reminder of how personal circumstances are shaping releases across genres.