U2 announce date for album release

U2 are to release their new studio album No Line On The Horizon on March 2, it was announced today.

It will be the Irish rock group's first release in almost five years.

The new recording, their 12th studio album, was originally expected to be released this year, but Bono and his bandmates decided to keep working on it.

Sessions for No Line On The Horizon began last year in Fez, Morocco before moving to the band's own studio in their native Dublin.

Recording then switched across the Atlantic to New York's Platinum Sound Recording Studios and was finally completed at Olympic Studios in London.

Long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Danny Lanois are among the production credits with additional production by Steve Lillywhite.

U2's last studio album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was released in late 2004 and sold nine million copies.