Metallica to premiere brand new music at South America gig

Metallica have teased fans by announcing that they will finally be revealing long-awaited new material this weekend. 

The metal icons and Sonisphere headliners took to Facebook to tell fans about their plans to air a new song at a gig in South America:

Last month, Metallica's Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett discussed details of the band's upcoming tenth album - though they remain comically vague.

The band first hinted at a new record last year, when James Hetfield admitted that they had enough songs to complete an album. Now, according to Hammett, "James [Hetfield] has 800 pieces of music. I have 400 pieces of music." So, probably enough for an extended disc too.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Ulrich said: "We're one day closer to the next record being released than we were yesterday. Unless there's what's called an 'Act of God', I would hedge my bets that '201' would be the first three digits in the release year." The drummer then added, "We've been jamming along. We've been putting in some time."

"Once we figure out what pieces of music are actually gonna work for us," offered Hammett, "then we're going to start turning those pieces of music into songs and seeing where that leads us."

Metallica's last studio album was Death Magnetic, released in 2008. Since then they've released a collaborative project, Lulu, with the late Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed.

Metallica return to the UK to headline Sonisphere 2014 alongside Iron Maiden and The Prodigy. Other performers include Deftones, Limp Bizkit, Frank Turner and many more.