Tenacious D have teased fans with the news that their first new full-length album since 2012 is “probably” going to be released this year.

Just last week, Tenacious D announced that they’re on track to release a follow-up to their 2006 film, The Pick Of Destiny. While appearing at the Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, frontman Jack Black revealed that their new movie is set to drop in October. “I don’t know where you’ll be able to see it, but we have decided that it’s happening and it’s coming out,” Black said.

Now, the group have announced a number of US dates, while teasing fans with the promise of album #4, the follow-up to 2012’s Rize Of The Fenix.

After the group were announced yesterday for the Foo Fighters’ upcoming Cal Jam 18, Tenacious D today released a (rather cheaply) animated teaser video which indicated that they’ve got new music on the way.

The 40-second clip shows Kyle Gass and Jack Black sitting on a couch, trying to think of new ways to come up with rent money. “I guess we have to write another album,” suggests Gass, before Black chimes in by explaining “Ugh, dude that’s gonna take us like five more years — we are fucked, we are so fucked.”

“Or are we?” asks Gass sneakily, as the group instead decide to hit the road to the sound of an a cappella rendition of the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’, while the lines “new album 2018… probably…” flash across the screen.

Of course, Jack Black has been hinting towards the group’s new album being released for a while. Tentatively titled Post-Apocalypto, Jack Black has referred to the new project as a “rock opera” in previous interviews.

“We’re working on a rock opera,” he revealed to Conan O’Brien in December. “It’s a post-apocalyptic musical comedy, and the idea is that you know, you’ve got Pink Floyd The Wall, and you’ve got Tommy [by] The Who, and those are the only true rock operas in existence.”

“You hear rock opera all the time. There’s only two rock operas. Ours is gonna go right there, somewhere in there, and all of the other ‘supposed rock operas’ can suck it! ‘Cause they suck.”

As it stands, the band are yet to release definite, concrete plan about their new album and movie, but at this stage, we’re absolutely stoked to see what’s on the horizon. Now all we need is for Tenacious D to make their first trip to Australia since 2013.

Check out Tenacious D’s ‘Tribute’: