Arctic Monkeys Announce Their First 2018 Tour Date... And Tease More

They've been away for a while but it looks like Arctic Monkeys are back this year after they finally announced their return with their first confirmed tour date of 2018.

The indie rock stars - originally from Sheffield, England - have been hard at work at their sixth studio album and have now been confirmed to play at Firefly Festival in the US between June 14-17.

Fans heading to Firefly Festival, which takes place in the Woodlands of Delaware, will also see Eminem and Kendrick Lamar as headliners, according to the festival's Twitter acccount.

The video, shared with fans via Instagram Live, shows a set of rapidly scrambling numbers and tells fans to 'stay tuned' by sending them a private message on Instagram.

Fans of the band on Reddit have speculated that the video's numbers show potential tour dates and the geographical co-ordinates of where they'll play.

If calculations made by fans are true, the band will be playing Mad Cool Festival, Primavera Sound, and Rock Werchter among others - and may even be playing near Waterloo Bridge in London tomorrow night. Exciting!

"Nick found time for the track day before recording began on the eagerly anticipated sixth album, started at a secret location in September," the article read.

"The new album will be out next year because 'if it isn't, we've got problems'." What sort of problems, we wonder?

The group have been relatively quiet since they released AM in 2013, one of the band's most critically and commercially successful albums to date. The album was nominated for the 2013 Mercury Prize and is considered to be their US breakthrough.

Photos of the band seemingly in the studio emerged right at the start of 2018, suggesting that recording of the new LP is well underway.

Let's hope there's more to come from the UK heroes soon.