Metallica fans have had to be patient while waiting for the band to put together a follow-up to 2008's 'Death Magnetic,' but it looks like 2014 might be their year.

Guitarist Kirk Hammett recently told Billboard that after putting it off for years with a variety of projects, they'll be getting down to business "in a couple of weeks." While he didn't go into any details about specific plans, he did open up a bit about what's kept the band out of the studio for so long.

"When we start, that's going to be our main priority, and we're pretty excited about it because we've been saying we need to start working on this album, but we've been procrastinating greatly with it," Hammett admitted. "We've pretty much come up with every sort of excuse we can not to start work on the album, but we've run out of excuses, so we pretty much have to start work on it now."

Once they reconvene, Hammett anticipates a lot of tough creative decisions -- but not because they'll have to work to come up with new material. "We're a band that never has a shortage of ideas," he explained. "You hear about these bands that are sitting in the studio and they don't have any songs, what are they gonna do? That's not Metallica. Metallica's problem is the total opposite. We have too many ideas. James [Hetfield] has, like, 800 ideas. I have 400. Those number alone are just crazy. That's formidable."

More From Ultimate Classic Rock