Prog-metal legends Dream Theater will reconvene in a couple of months to start working on their 14th studio album, the follow-up to 2016’s The Astonishing.

"We're gonna start back in the studio in June — just all be together and writing and working on the new album," vocalist James LaBrie said in a chat with the Lead Singer Syndrome podcast (heard below). "We're hoping that the album will be out, let's say, February of 2019. And then we're looking, at this point, that we'd start the next world tour next March."

Though they’re in the preliminary stages, Dream Theater are striving to write heavy songs that will not be part of any thematic presentation. "I think [it will] maybe [be] a little bit on the heavier side,” keyboardist Jordan Rudess recently told Metal Wani. “Certainly nothing like a concept album, since we already did The Astonishing and we had a lot of fun, and it was a wonderful, creative project. Now I think maybe [we'll be] returning a little bit more to the roots, and that probably involves a little bit of a harder approach, I guess, to the sound, but never losing sight of the melody.”

The next Dream Theater album will be the band’s first for InsideOut Music, a prog-rock imprint of Sony Music. The band has recorded on different labels over the past 25 years – most recently Roadrunner Records, from 2007 to 2016.

In addition to working on new Dream Theater material, LaBrie is writing songs for the follow-up to his 2013 solo album Impermanent Resonance. In addition, he will take the stage with Brazilian band Noturnall for four shows in South American later this month. The April 24 concert in São Paulo at Teatro Porto Seguro will be recorded for a DVD, Labrie said.

Hear Dream Theater's James LaBrie on the Lead Singer Syndrome Podcast

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