Bono has told the Irish Times that he and U2 want to make an "uncompromising, balls-to-the-wall, transcendent rock 'n' roll album, with unreasonable guitars, like properly aggressive as the times deserve", and hope to begin recording by the end of the year.
In an interview with the Irish Times to mark the publication of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, the U2 frontman said he wants the band's next album to capture the live U2 experience in the studio.
He said that once he completes his book tour, which includes a date at Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre on 21 November, he will focus his attention on U2's next record.
Bono told the paper that he believes that U2 may still have their best album in them - but that creating it might "cost us a lot".
"The question we have got to ask ourselves is: are we ready to pay that cost, and the cost will be in relationships?" he said.
"Are we going to go in there and give it all of our life, because that's what art demands in the end? And I want the answer to that question to be yes, and I haven't really figured out what that means for the rest of my life. But that will be the second book."
Bono also revealed that U2 have plans to celebrate their album Achtung Baby, which was released in 1991.
"We are planning something special for Achtung Baby, not a tour but something extraordinary," he said. "It is important to do retrospectives for any artist, but not too many. I have just spent a few years in the past, and I am very keen to get to the future."
The full interview is in the weekend edition of the Irish Times.
Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story is published by Penguin Random House on 1 November.
