Bono says U2, holed up in a recording studio somewhere in the south of France, are creating more than God did in Genesis, and that this sudden bounty has forced the veteran quartet to push back the release date of their follow-up to 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

"We've hit a rich songwriting vein," noted song miner Bono says in the statement. "It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we've found diamonds not coal." And with pickaxes and flashlights they continue to harvest their next record, now due to surface sometime in 2009. [NME]