U2 are aiming to finish their new album by the end of November, bass player Adam Clayton has revealed.
The band last released an album in 2009 when they put out No Line On The Horizon. It is expected that their new record will appear in 2014 with Clayton confirming that the band are trying to wind up work and get the songs “absolutely right” prior to Christmas.
Speaking to Irish radio station 98FM, Clayton said of the sound of the album: “I think it’s a bit of a return to U2 of old, but with the maturity, if you like, of the U2 of the last 10 years. It’s a combination of those two things and it’s a really interesting hybrid.”
He added: “We’re in the studio. We’re trying to get these 12 songs absolutely right and get them finished by the end of November, and then we can kind of enjoy Christmas.”
In the same interview, guitarist The Edge said: “We always try to bring out something different, every time we’re in the studio. But it’s the fans who decide that really.”
Earlier this year U2 were reportedly spotted entering a New York studio with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, fuelling speculation that the singer may appear on the band’s new album. All four members of the rock group were seen at the Electric Lady Studios in New York in May, where Danger Mouse was reportedly mixing the new material.
Meanwhile, Bono had a newly-identified species of spider named after him in January. The trapdoor spider, which was one of 33 new species discovered by biologist Jason Bond of Auburn University in Alabama, can be found in the Joshua Tree National Park – the California landscape that the band’s seminal 1987 album was named after.