NEWS: Strokes Album Due 2011

For fans this one has been a long time coming.

Casablancas said the new album, which his bandmates have been recording without him, is "almost halfway done".

The band's drummer Fab Moretti had hoped the follow-up album to 2006's 'First Impressions Of Earth' might be released by the end of 2010.

He told BBC 6Music: "We've wanted to do it for months, or maybe a year now, and then we keep thinking 'OK, we'll do it for like these three weeks and we'll be done'. Then we do it and we decide we're not done, or something comes in the way."

When asked if he preferred playing with his solo band or with The Strokes, Casablancas remained coy.

He said: "That is a tough question because if I say this [my solo band] then I'd probably be hurting people in The Strokes' feelings, so I'm not gonna say that. I can't answer. I'm sorry. I want to, but I can't. Does it matter with people if I said that?"

The singer said that he thinks playing solo is "liberating", before admitting that his loyalties are split.