Keane have confirmed they are putting the finishing touches to their first album in six years.
Keane's Tom Chaplin
The 'Everybody's Changing' hitmakers went on an indefinite hiatus in 2013, a year after releasing their last record 'Strangeland', and after frontman Tom Chaplin admitted he would need to repair his "complicated" relationship with bandmate Tim Rice-Oxley, it was recently revealed that they put their differences aside to hit the studio to make new music.
Following the release of his two solo albums, 2016's 'The Wave' and 2017's 'Twelve Tales of Christmas', Tom met with Tim - the band's songwriter and pianist - to listen to songs he'd been working on for his own solo project, but the pair ended up turning the "emotional" and "personal" collection of songs into a new Keane record.
Tom explained: "I thought it was the most personal, most vulnerable set of songs that I'd ever heard and I was very drawn to that. It felt like a story that I could help articulate."
Tom and Tim have reunited with drummer Richard Hughes and bassist Jesse Quin for the record, which will be released later this year, and they are set to play a series of festival shows in the UK and Europe this summer.
The band will support Robbie Williams at Barclaycard presents British Summertime Hyde Park on July 14 and play Cornbury Festival in Oxfordshire on July 6.
Life in Keane didn't come easy for singer Tom, who saw his life spiral out of control in the mid-2000s due to his addictions to drink and drugs, and after picking himself back up again, he suffered a relapse in 2015.
The 40-year-old star admitted in 2017 that reuniting with his bandmates would only be possible if he and Tim mended their relationship to make the group a "happy" place again.
Opening up about his difficult friendship with the 42-year-old keyboardist - he said at the time: "Me and Tim have a really complicated relationship. We have great love and respect, but there are other elements in that relationship. I think in order to do something with Keane we would have to explore ways to make it a happy and positive experience again. And at the moment it doesn't feel for me it's the right thing to be doing."
The 'Somewhere Only We Know' hitmakers - who made their live comeback performing the song on BBC's 'Comic Relief' earlier this month - are expected to announce further live dates in due course.
Keane's 2019 festival dates are as follows:
June 9, Hello Festival, Emmen, Netherlands
July 6, Cornbury Festival, Oxfordshire, UK
July 14, BST Hyde Park, London, UK (supporting Robbie Williams)
July 19, MEO Marés Vivas, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
July 20, Noches del Botanico, Madrid, Spain
July 21, 4Ever Valencia, Spain
September 7, - Live On The Beach, Den Haag, Netherlands
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