Dream Theater's follow-up to 2016's divisive concept album The Astonishing will officially get underway this June.

Frontman James LaBrie tells podcast Lead Singer Syndrome that the band will hit the studio this June, and they're hoping to get the record out in February 2019. He also says if that all goes according to plan, Dream Theater will hit the road in March.

"We're gonna start back in the studio in June — just all be together and writing and working on the new album. 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."

In an interview with Metal Wani recently, keyboardist Jordan Rudess also discussed the direction of the new album. He says it won't be a concept album and that the band will return to their roots to craft a bit of a harder record. Which is in line with guitarist John Petrucci's recent comments that the new album might feature eight-string guitars.

"I think that we're interested to just put our heads together and find something that we feel is really representative of who we are. Yeah, I think maybe a little bit on the heavier side. 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. Dream Theater isDream Theater — it's always a stylistic blend of a lot of different things. But all I can say about it at this point is we wanna kind of figure out what the core of who we are and what the music is and just kind of present that."