Iron Maiden Planning New Studio Album

According ot Bang Media International, Iron Maiden will start work on its next album this year. The group hopes to have a new album out and be back on tour in 2010.

Guitarist Adrian Smith told Bang showbiz: "At the end of the year we'll be writing again, rehearsing and recording at the beginning of next year. Then we'll be back out on the road again next year. Kevin Shirley [producer] will be working on it with us and we'll probably be doing it somewhere where we've done a lot for recording in the past."

The next Iron Maiden album will be the band's fifteenth studio record, and they face a challenge to follow up their last effort, 2006s "A Matter Of Life And Death" which was received well critically and saw the band tour playing the whole album.

Speaking at the premiere of the band's documentary film "Iron Maiden: Flight666", Adrian added: "There's always a bit of pressure to follow up the last album, in a way it's good because it motivates you.

"We never get complacent; we always try our best for our own sake as much as anything else. As far as pressure for another album, we just do what we do - we've been doing it long enough now, we know what we're doing [laughs]"