The Darkness have “nearly finished” their comeback album.

The ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ rockers reformed with their original line up earlier this year, and have been putting together the follow up to 2005’s ‘One Way Ticket To Hell. And Back’, which they are aiming to release in March.

Singer Justin Hawkins told Billboard.com: “We’ve got nine of the required songs done, all finished, all sounding shining and good. We’ve got about two weeks of recording in January, and bits of it are already going off to be mixed even as we speak, so it’s kind of nearly finished now.”

Justin’s brother and bandmate Dan said the band are producing the album themselves and recording at his home, as they want to return to the sound of their debut album, 2003’s ‘Permission to Land’.

He added: “Rather than a big-name producer we decided to do it ourselves, as per the first record. We just wanted to develop the songs and make sure they were really spot-on and basically take a minimal approach across the board – apart from when we needed to go really over the top.”

The group have previously said the new album will be influenced by Dire Straits and the town of Lowestoft, in East England, where they all grew up.

Justin said: “Home is where the heart is. When you write songs, you need a grounding to set the stories in. There’s a lot about small-town life. The album has songs about stuff that’s happened to us in the town.”