"We've always said an album is expected this year," says a spokesperson for the band
By Andy Greene, Rolling Stone
U2 fans may get their hands on a new album before the ball drops on New Year's Eve, possibly as early as next month. Reports circulated a few months ago that U2 were delaying the album until 2015 so they would have enough time to work on material with producer Paul Epworth, but a spokesperson for the band has told Rolling Stone that that timing is inaccurate: "We've always said an album is expected this year."
The news is consistent with reports in the Irish media that the album is coming out within the next few months, and Universal Music Venezuela and Universal Music Colombia briefly posted tweets saying the album was coming out in September.
Whatever the near future holds, U2 seem to be hard at work. The French newspaper Nice-Matin reported that the group shot a new video in Nice, France, the other week, and the Irish Times quotes a source saying there will be a single in September, an album in September or October and a tour announced in December, with dates beginning in April of next year. "It is believed," says the article, via U2 fan site atu2.com, that "the band will release it with little of the fanfare usually associated with a new U2 album."