To celebrate the 20th anniversary of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, U2 have announced a “shadow” album, a collection of 10 songs titled How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb.
The collection includes new and unreleased songs discovered in the archive of the original album recording sessions.
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb has now been remastered, a process which saw the band go back to the vault to revisit those early ’00s recording sessions, a period of intense creativity for U2 in the studio, as well as a time of deep personal and artistic reflection following the passing of Bono’s father Bob in 2001. This special 20th anniversary edition, will include the bonus track “Fast Cars.”
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (Re-Assemble Edition) – featuring both How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb – will be available as a dual digital release on November 22.
“For this anniversary edition I went into my personal archive to see if there were any unreleased gems and I hit the jackpot. We chose ten that really spoke to us. Although at the time we left these songs to one side, with the benefit of hindsight we recognize that our initial instincts about them being contenders for the album were right, we were onto something,” said the U2 lead guitarist The Edge.
He added, “What you’re getting on this shadow album is that raw energy of discovery, the visceral impact of the music, a sonic narrative, a moment in time, the exploration and interaction of four musicians playing together in a room… this is the pure U2 drop”.
This “shadow” album includes four new, never-before-heard or previously released songs – “Treason,” “Evidence Of Life,” “Country Mile” and “Happiness”; plus a song called “Luckiest Man In The World” – familiar to many under its working title “Mercy”; as well as five newly remastered songs – “Picture Of You (X+W),” “Don’t Wanna See You Smile,” “Are We Gonna Wait Forever?,” “Theme From The Batman” and “All Because Of You 2.”
The remastered How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (20th Anniversary Edition) will be released in the following formats: Vinyl 8LP Super Deluxe Collectors Boxset (Limited Edition); Vinyl 2LP; Exclusive D2C 2LP Black & Red Ink Spot Vinyl (Limited Edition); 5CD Super Deluxe Collectors Boxset (Limited Edition); CD; and Exclusive Red & Black Cassette (Limited Edition). The digital releases include HTDAAB remastered (12 tracks) and HTDAAB & HTRAAB (22 tracks).
How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb will be available in physical format for Record Store Day Black Friday as a Limited Edition Black & Red Marble 1LP Vinyl as well as a standalone 10 track digital release on November 29.
U2 have released first two tracks from the collection, “Country Mile” and “Picture of You (X+W).”
Source: RTT Music News
