Although New York’s finest dance punks The Rapture will return to Australia over summer to hit up a few key festivals like Summadayze and Field Day, the band have told inthemix that they won’t have a new album out for fans to expect to hear songs from.

Speaking to inthemix last week, Rapture drummer Vito Roccorforte told inthemix that the band have completed their third, Phillipe Zdar produced album, but are biding their time to release it.

“We finished the record earlier this summer, and I think as a whole it’s the best record that we’ve made yet” Roccoforte told ITM. “It’s all done and mastered now, so we’re just sitting on it until next year.”

Explaining exactly why The Rapture have chosen to hold back their finished product, Roccoforte said that the band are currently figuring out a release strategy for the record since splitting from their previous home at major label Universal.

“We’re not on a label right now, so this album was self-financed,” he said. “We did and paid for everything ourselves and now we own it, which is a pretty cool feeling. We’re taking our time with releasing it because there are just so many options for how to do it and we want to figure out the best way. We’d prefer to wait a little longer and release it next year instead of doing it now and rushing it for the final quarter of 2010.”

While that’s a bit of a downer for local fans still waiting for a follow up to 2006’s Pieces Of The People We Love, Roccoforte did let slip that there would be a taste of the new record circulating before their tour and that fans can expect the band to play a couple of new tunes live.

“We wouldn’t want to play a lot of the new stuff live, just because it’s a festival and people want to hear some songs that they know, but we’ll definitely have some new stuff for you to hear by then,” he said. “We’re all excited about coming back; Australia is always a great place to play and it’ll be the dead of winter over here so what better time to come over, y’know?”