My Chemical Romance have been hard at work recording their follow-up to 2006's Black Parade. The album is currently in the mixing stage and is being mixed by Rich Costey. The group recruited Brendan O'Brien to produce their 4th studio album. No word on an official release date yet, but the album is expected to drop sometime this spring. Message from the band below.

Mixing with our good buddy Rich Costey is going great. So far, he's mixed 9 songs, and they all sound fucking stellar. He had an interesting process where he started out mixing some of the looser songs first, and then ramped up to the denser stuff. Our goal in mixing is to make it loud, and then make it louder then that. "Still Alive" was an early one, and he brought a real heaviness and aggressiveness to that song. Song is very drum and bass oriented, very different for us, but still rocks at the same time. A bit of Queen influenced guitar harmonies helps on that song.

"Save Yourself" was another early one, a mix of Judas Priest metal and 80's arena rock. That song went through a lot of different permutations, and finally we settled on this vibe that took us to new territory. We then got into a song called "The Only Hope For Me Is You," and that's where things really starting clicking with Rich. What was great was each song would just sound better and bigger than the last. As some of you had guessed from a twitter thing of mine (I refuse to call it a tweet), David Campbell did a bit of work on the record, and that's one of the songs he arranged for. Costey did this crazy effect with the strings going into the last chorus that blew me away. One of my favorite tracks. (click "read more" for more!)