U2 RECORD PROMISES
TO BE THE BOMB

U2's new album should be out at just about the same time as the announcement of the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the band's first studio album since 2000's acclaimed All That You Can't Leave Behind, is set for worldwide release by Interscope on Nov. 22.

According to guitarist Edge, one of the 11 songs is called "All Because of You." Or at least that's what the track was called when they were recording it. Titles for the six other announced songs are "Vertigo" (the first single), "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own," "City of Blinding Lights," "A Man and a Woman," "Yahweh" and "Crumbs From Your Table."

The website quotes the band's biographer Bill Flanagan on the album: "I've heard it, it's great. It's the best album they have ever done. It's going to knock them out!"

This past summer, some of the new material went missing during a photo shoot with the band in France. "A large slice of two years work lifted via a piece of round plastic," reflected Edge. "It doesn't seem credible but that's what's just happened to us...."

The first single will be on-air before the month is out and comes complete with a Kraftwerk cover and live studio performance.

The album has been produced by Steve Lillywhite, his first time at the desk for a whole U2 album since he produced the band's first three albums, Boy, October and War. But others have been in the studio, too, including Flood, Jacknife Lee, Nellee Hooper and Chris Thomas.

It will, according to Bono, "be our first rock & roll album."

Plans to tour in 2005 are also underway. Longtime manager Paul McGuinness says the tour will be defined by "the character of the new album and the new production."