The Darkness has announced that they have finished recording nine songs for their comeback album out in the spring of 2012.

This will be the first album since 2005's 'One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back', and frontman Justin Hawkins revealed that the band are expecting to finish recording the remaining tracks by the end of January in time to release the album on his birthday, March 17.

While speaking to Billboard, Hawkins said “[We've got] nine of the required songs done, all finished, all sounding shining and good. We've got about two weeks of recording in January, and bits of it are already going off to be mixed even as we speak, so it's kind of nearly finished now.”

The original line-up of The Darkness reunited earlier this year for a round of live shows, including an electrifying performance at Download festival (a clip can be seen on NME.com).

Hawkins' brother Dan added that the band had been looking to return to the "more organic rock sounds" of their 2003 debut 'Permission To Land', which spawned hit singles 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' and 'Love Is Only A Feeling'.

"Rather than a big-name producer we decided to do it ourselves, as per the first record. We just wanted to develop the songs and make sure they were really spot-on and basically take a minimal approach across the board - apart from when we needed to go really over the top," he explained.

Material for the as-yet-untitled album was rehearsed in their Lowestoft hometown and recorded at Dan's home studio.

"Home is where the heart is," says Justin. "When you write songs, you need a grounding to set the stories in. There's a lot about small-town life. The album has songs about stuff that's happened to us in the town. [As for influences], it's AC/DC, Queen, Aerosmith, et cetera."