Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders has revealed that the band’s new album is “pretty much” finished and likely to arrive in 2022.

Many fans have been eagerly awaiting news on a follow-up album to their highly acclaimed 2018 record Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, with a number of reports and many rumours around its recording emerging over the past year.

Back in January, the band’s manager revealed that the group had been “working on music” and had initially planned to record last summer before Helders also confirmed that they were in the “early stages” of the album whilst discussing issues such as overcoming obstacles brought on by the pandemic. Then, back in August, it emerged that the band had been recording new material in Suffolk.

Now, just yesterday as part of the BBC’s Drumathon, Helders joined 5 Live Breakfast to give a drum lesson and talk with presenter Rick Edwards.

During the interview, Helders was asked if the new album was “ready to go” to which he answered “Yeah, pretty much, yeah. It was a bit disjointed how we had to do it, and there are bits to finish off, but yeah, it’s all in the works.” He then continued to say that he believed the album would drop sometime in 2022, “I think by the time we get everything together it’ll be next year. Hopefully we can get out and tour next summer.”

The drummer also went on to describe what the record may potentially sound like, he said “We tend to always move it on a little bit, For us, because we’re so involved in it, it always makes sense. They always kind of pick up where the other one left off in a way. It makes sense when you think about it in the context of the last record. But we always do try and do something a bit different – it’s kind of hard to describe. You can tell it’s the same band.”

Edwards then asked the drummer if he was “confident you’ll bring the fans with you when you know that you’re evolving the sound,”  with perhaps a surprising reply “No, and I think we got a bit of a wake-up call with that on the third album [‘Humbug’, 2009]. That was more of an intentional decision to do something different. That was one where we’d get weird back-handed compliments from the fans who stuck around for that one.”

With a record probably being released next year it is likely a tour will follow in summer 2022 and Arctic Monkeys fans will surely be wandering where the Sheffield band could be due to appear.