According to bassist Adam Clayton, who spoke to Q, the band have already finished the majority of their next album. "I think we've probably got 70 percent of the material that we think will go onto it," he said. "The 30 percent that we're missing I think we'll be able to generate relatively easily. But the amount of energy it will take to refine the perspective of those songs is hard to predict."

As for how it will be released? Considering the alleged title of their follow-up is Songs of Experience, you can likely expect that they will drop the album with some fanfare - and they might even invent another new album release method.