No Doubt Tweet from the studio

A pic and a tweet are enough to confirm that No Doubt are back in the studio and recording.

It's been almost a decade since No Doubt released their last studio album Rocksteady. And it has been a solid four years since Gwen Stefani released her second solo album The Sweet Escape.

In an alarmingly garbled tweet, Stefani cheered that the line-up of the band's Tragic Kingdom heyday are holed up in Hollywood to record new No Doubt matrial: ""The 4 of us are 2gethr in Hllywd today- 2 start recording the first batch of new ND songs."

For those who had a little trouble deciphering that, she also uploaded two photos which display an equally alarming youthfulness (we're almost expecting someone to point out that the snaps are from a decade ago or that there's a portrait of the band aging somewhere in Interscope's attic).

There has been talk of the band recording for over a year but this is the first proof from the horse's mouth – so to speak – that they're actually in the studio.

What No Doubt will sound like a year and multiple side-projects later, nobody knows, although a year ago drummer Adrian Young told MTV that the band naturally "gravitate towards reggae".

The current consensus is that the new album will be out by year's end.