I hope it's one of those albums like that Prince one that came out with literally no promotion. Walk into a record store and just see it sitting there, then do some promotion a week or so after the 'no promotion' launch.
Just release something already IMO. The longer they take to work on it the shitter it gets. Unless it's like Pop > ATYCLB. I'll have an album of that quality after a big break any day. They took too long screwing around with NLOTH and it didn't turn out to be their greatest thing ever, just get in, write it, record it, put it out.
They've got enough material left over from the SoA sessions and plus some new stuff they've written or even still have left over from ATYCLB or HTDAAB (Mercy any one?) that they should have one polished off by now.
Pop - ATYCLB = 3 years
ATYCLB - HTDAAB = 4 years
HTDAAB - NLOTH = 4 years
NLOTH - new album = 4 years already verging on 5.