Metallica are planning to start writing a new album in 2011.

The ‘Enter Sandman’ group are presently finishing touring their ninth record, ‘Death Magnetic’, and drummer Lars Ulrich said he’s looking forward to getting back into the studio to plan another album.

He told The Pulse of Radio network: “There’s a bunch of stuff in the air for 2011, but I think the main one is we really want to get back to writing again.

“We haven’t really written since, what, ’06, ’07, and we want to get back to kind of just being creative again. Right now we are going to just chill out and then probably start up again in, I’d say, March or April, and start probably putting the creative cap back on and start writing some songs.”

The band are also keen to stage more of their ‘Big Four’ shows – which saw them appear on the same stage as Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth across Europe earlier this year – and to take the concerts to their native US for the first time.

The group may also realise a “pretty theatrical” spectacular live project which their co-manager Peter Mensch says could rival the groundbreaking live show of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’.

Lars explained: “We have been kicking some ideas around about doing some stuff that – how shall I say it – is pretty theatrical. We might incorporate a lot of different ideas, instead of it being one particular thing. It would be a multitude of theatrical elements, maybe as an idea for a one-off tour or something.”