U2’s profoundly urgent ‘Days of Ash’ and ‘Easter Lily’ EPs offer a powerful way to reflect on our exterior and interior worlds – from defiance to introspection – heralding an artistic renaissance for the band amidst their self-proclaimed “wilderness years.”

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On a spring day in March 1987, I remember clear as daylight how my world and perspective shifted dramatically upon hearing for the very first time U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

The Joshua Tree was entirely saturating fraternity and sorority row at Syracuse University in upstate New York as I walked to my classes. This was during the paradox of dying winter snowflakes and emerging spring pink blossoms. It was a destiny of climatic appropriateness in the stunning impact that The Joshua Tree would implode.

Later that same year, it was an entirely notable event in my life to experience their seismic Joshua Tree tour at the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University on October 9, 1987. Yet, the real seismic event in my own life occurred through how both The Joshua Tree and, a few years later, Achtung Baby would be the two constant companions in my life that accompanied me throughout life’s most beautiful times and also the most dire nights.

Throughout the decades since, U2 have created compelling, marginal albums with certain crystalline songs that have been striking in providing indelible forms of existential sustenance and political awareness, but it seemed that the certain and often unattainable magic of The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby was no longer quite accessible. Until, perhaps, today.

It has been a remarkable six weeks for U2 fans around the world.

U2’s Days of Ash EP, released on Ash Wednesday (February 18, 2026), provided us with a chilling watershed call to stand before the world through their stunning political analysis in five of six mesmerizing tracks that were positioned as odes to certain countries and people in a state of turmoil and loss in our immensely troubling times. My friends and I were deeply immersed in the immense poignancy that was framed through such tracks as “The Tears of Things” and “One Life at a Time,” which provided us with the levers to think about this world’s problems with differing forms of intricate nuance and alterity. The beautiful closing sixth track on this EP – “Yours Eternally,” is a clarion call to a brighter future. We all lamented that this might be the end of what we would hear from U2 for perhaps years.

“These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world,” Bono said at the time. “They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation… because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there’s 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.”

Good Friday (April 3, 2026) saw U2 drop the Easter Lily EP, a collection of songs about our interior world.

On Instagram, the band stated that, in comparison to Days of Ash, the six-track Easter Lily is a “much more reflective set of songs emerging from a more personal, private place that some may retreat to in such times – exploring themes of friendship, loss, hope, and ultimately, renewal.”

“We are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colourful’ album to play LIVE… which is where U2 lives,” Bono shared. “We still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure ‘wilderness years’ for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world. It’s a time that has our band digging deeper into our lives to find a wellspring of songs to try meet the moment… We will attempt hoopla and fanfare at a later date to remind the rest of the world we exist, but in the meantime… this is between you and us.”

Bono also remarked that the Easter Lily EP is a nod to Patti Smith’s album Easter, which gave him so much hope when it was released in 1978. At that time, he wasn’t yet 18. Well, Bono and U2 have given us more than hope on their Easter Lily EP.

As Easter Lily arrived, I slipped on my headphones to begin my listening with the first track –“Song for Hal.”

I was immediately captivated and literally shocked at what I was witnessing in U2’s magical renaissance.

While “Days of Ash” has immense gravitas for the current situation in our outside world, something in my mind began to shift while immersing myself in “Song for Hal,” and I thought, there is something happening here that perhaps only comes around a few times or even just once or twice in the career of an artist. I wasn’t quite sure, because I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but as “In a Life” began to unfurl, I desired to shed tears of happiness as I felt again like that teenager in 1987, when U2 provided me with that sustenance to feel more alive than any other human on planet Earth, at least metaphorically.

I was almost in real time experiencing the artistic reawakening of U2, feeling the immense power of music to dramatically change our lives. “In a Life” is one song that perhaps rarely appears – a watershed of emotion and transformation. A track that speaks to the incredible power of friendship to indeed transform our lives – an extraordinary ode to their own friendship in U2 that has endured through decades. Yet, it is also a song about our own relationships that sustain our lives and make it possible to impact and change the world.

As The Edge himself stated about “In a Life” in U2’s Propaganda magazine: “Listening to it after ‘Song for Hal,’ I’m reminded not to take friends for granted… none of us know how long we are here. People tell me our music is very emotionally impactful on them. What they don’t know is that we get the same feelings when we play the songs.”

It was the most beautiful of mornings on that April 3^rd, as I then leaned into “Resurrection Song,” and I was floored yet again, as this one is for the ages. For those of you that are sick and tired of Bono going on about love, renewal, and redemption, he speaks to you in this song. He essentially states, “f**k you,” as he’s not done yet. The Edge captured a hook here, one hook that could change your perspective – and indeed, even your life.

U2 gave us that kind of power, for us kids that grew up on those albums that nourished our souls from Boy, October, War, and The Unforgettable Fire – they created a world that we could all inhabit, one that stood against the catastrophes and insufferable conflicts. They not only gave us hope, but they made life an intense existential exploration and celebration. They are indeed back with a glorious vengeance in providing us with an intense blueprint of how to think and live otherwise – the only choice is to join them on this remarkable journey and fight back for what is all of ours in this world.

U2 have called this their “wilderness years” – a name that feels all too universal, as resurgent nationalism excludes and marginalizes others amid ongoing conflicts and horrific wars.

In these dire times, Days of Ash and Easter Lily provide us with a profound way to think about our exterior and interior world through U2’s magical renaissance. U2 are indeed back, and now more than ever – they are an inspiring beacon of hope in this troubling era. Listen and find your path. I’ll “meet you in the air.”

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:: stream/purchase Days of Ash here ::

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 © Anton Corbijn

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