Filed directly under “Good News”, the Scottish based indie indie band Belle & Sebastian have announced that they are about to go back into the studio to work on a new album.  The band has been on hiatus and hasn’t released anything since 2006′s “The Life Pursuit”.

The band made the announcement as an email to their fans via their website, belleandsebastian.com – “We’ve been in the studio these last few weeks writing some new tracks and shortly we will say cheerio to Glasgow for a while when we set off to L.A. to record our next album.”

Despite the lack of details, this gives long time fans (myself included) something to be excited about, as it seemed the writing was on the wall for the end of the band’s long run.  The band also announced, they will be hitting the road this summer, but so far have only announced a few festival dates.  We will be monitoring the developments closely, and will keep you all up to date.

The announced tour dates are:

Ruisrock Festival (Finland) – 7/11
Slottsfjell Festival (Norway) – 7/15
Fuji Rock Festival (Japan) – 8/1

UK dates are said to be revealed soon, but how about some love for the US?