U2 delays next album to 2015

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― U2 is pushing back the release of their 13th album to 2015 despite a new single and many high-profile media appearances, music industry journal Billboard said Friday.

Citing anonymous sources, it said the Irish mega band fronted by Bono has scheduled additional sessions with producers Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth, although Danger Mouse remains the project’s central producer.

“It seems to be taking longer for them to finish an album as they get older, but the great thing about U2 is that the whole of a record is always better than the sum of its parts,” Billboard quoted a source close to the project as saying. “That magic that the band always seems to capture ... they have yet to capture it.”

Billboard also reported that a U2 tour that would have been announced this month, and would have kicked off in September, has also been rolled back to next year.

Since the start of this year, U2 has played at the Golden Globes as well as on “The Tonight Show” on the night Jimmy Fallon took over as its host on NBC.

The group also rolled out their latest single “Invisible” during American football’s Super Bowl, in a tie-in with Bank of America to raise funds for the AIDS charity Red.