ABBA back after 40 years with album, virtual stage show

LONDON >> ABBA is releasing its first new music in four decades, along with a concert performance that will see the “Dancing Queen” quartet going entirely digital.

The forthcoming album “Voyage,” to be released Nov. 5, is a follow-up to 1981’s “The Visitors,” which until now had been the swan song of the Swedish supergroup. And a virtual version of the band will begin a series of concerts in London on May 27.

“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” ABBA said in a statement. “They say it’s foolhardy to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we’ve recorded a follow-up to ‘The Visitors.’”

The group has been creating the holographic live show, using motion capture and other techniques, with George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic.

They call it “the strangest and most spectacular concert you could ever dream of.”

“We’re going to be able to sit back in an audience and watch our digital selves perform our songs,” the group’s statement said. “Weird and wonderful!”

The planned show spurred the making of the album, which features the new songs “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down.” It began with sessions in 2018 and was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Members of the pop group ABBA, from left, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Foltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-frid Lyngstad, appear in Tokyo on March 14, 1980.