On Good Friday, U2 released their second surprise EP of 2026: Easter Lily.

Like the Days of Ash EP on Ash Wednesday, this is new music with U2 at their very best.

U2 is a funny band. They’ve been called the most overrated band in the world. They’ve also been called the most underrated band in the world. If you do the math on that, that means they are actually the best band in the world.

No one could be so polarizing if they did not have something special going on for so many years now.

The Easter Lily EP together with the Days of Ash EP easily clocks in for a full LP. And the band is not finished yet. A new full LP will be out later this year.

But even on its own, Easter Lily is over half an hour long. By classic rock standards, that qualifies as a full vinyl release.

And Easter Lily makes a case for considering U2 as a true prog band.

In the first place, the album is thematically coherent. It’s one of the best executed concept albums you will ever hear.

Beginning with the theme of friends lost and friends presently still held dear, it goes on to engage with the themes of suffering, transformation, resurrection, and healing.

It’s serious and joyful and inimitably U2.

None of the songs sound the same, but they all sound like U2 in various phases of their audio incarnations.

I love how the album begins with what we think of as the “trademark” U2 sound, that guitar sound that Eno and Lanois brought forth with The Edge on The Unforgettable Fire and conquered the world with on The Joshua Tree.

But U2 really has no one sound, despite the most famous associations that this distinctive one has. When you listen to the albums before those most famous ones, The Edge is already innovating in different ways that are still utterly distinct to U2.

And so too on all U2 albums that followed those: U2 constantly reinvented themselves and never stood still sonically.

Which brings me to my second point about Easter Lily. In the second place, it is not just a coherent concept album but also a coherent overview of U2’s vast sonic range. No one sounds so different and so utterly one — so individual — as a band than U2.

Both those points together make the case clear. U2 is a prog band, because their spirit has always been one of constant progression. They have never stagnated; or, if they ever appeared to, they have always doubled down and come back stronger than ever.

Which is precisely the story of Easter Lily. Because it sure seems to be U2’s most definitive and most impressive Resurrection Song.