Deep Purple Trading the Road for the Recording Studio

Good news and bad news, Deep Purple fans. The good news? The band finally is firming up plans to finish up work on the follow-up to their last album, 2005's 'Rapture of the Deep,' with an expected 2013 release date. The bad? They will be staying off the road while they wrap it up.

"Deep Purple are very excited by the prospect of making a new and significant album," reads a post on the band's official website. " To that end they have decided to extend their writing and recording period through the Summer of 2012."

Adds frontman Ian Gillan: "We know we will disappoint some of our fans this Summer however we look forward very much to our Autumn/ Winter Tour and continuing our Worldwide tour with our new album in 2013."

Which is a little change of pace for the band from last fall, when they were a little too worn down from spending time on the road to think about creating new music. “The fact is that we’ve been touring flat out,” Gillan told the Express & Star back in October. “We did 48 countries last year. We’re getting so much off on that we just don’t feel the drive at the moment for writing.”

That said, Deep Purple still do have a Canadian tour lined up that will keep them on the road through a Feb. 26 gig in Vancouver and a late-2012 tour scheduled to kick off Nov. 8 in Luxembourg. Check out their complete itinerary here.