Arctic Monkeys offer details on new album

Arctic Monkeys hope to release their second album at the beginning of 2007, according to a new interview with Britain's NME. The group said that it has written most of the songs for the CD, which will follow up this year's award-winning and best-selling debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Frontman Alex Turner told the magazine, "We'll do a few gigs in December, but...we're going in next month to do some recording."

Turner said the U.K. group had about "13 or 14" songs in different stages of preparation.

Although the quartet hoped to release its sophomore effort in January, drummer Matt Helders said it will "probably be a bit later."

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not won England's Mercury Music Prize for album of the year last week. The band plans to donate the approximate $38,000 cash prize to an undisclosed charity.

The CD has sold more than one million copies in its native England and was the fastest-selling debut in British music history. It has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in the U.S.