The Wrens went seven years between their second and third albums, Secaucus and The Meadowlands — a period of time that seemed extreme at the time of The Meadowlands’ release, in September 2003. But, it turns out, that was nothing. The 10th anniversary of The Meadowlands came and went last September — we did an oral history of the album to celebrate — with only whispers of a follow-up on the horizon. Throughout this year, though, the whispers have gotten louder; earlier this month, the band announced that a new album was almost done and they had inked a deal with a label for the album’s release. Today, we get another update. In a post on the Wrens’ site, Charles Bissell describes a recent harrowing bout with sepsis — “near-death pneumonia” — which forced him to reassess; it “changed a bunch of stuff, incl. priorities that have kept me toiling away on music to the exclusion of a lot of other things.” The upshot is, the album is DONE. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

[This is] is an end to the chasing of perfectionism with this record, which is only ever in part about the illusion of perfection anyway. And what that means is…the record’s done. It is what it is. And it’ll be fine. And that’s ME saying that. A few nuts & bolts have to be put back together when I get back home so we can ship all the rest off to mastering. But it’s done and if the Hold Steady hadn’t beaten us to it, would probably now call it The Wrens Almost Killed Me.

Gotta figure it won’t take more than a couple years to get those “nuts & bolts” squared away, right? Oh I’m just joking. It’ll be out in 2015, “which should be a way better year for us,” writes Bissell, and “hopefully you.” Hard to say, but this will certainly help.