In a post on the band's Web site, frontman Nick Thorburn (no Diamonds alias anymore, more on that later) has announced that the band is ready to enter the studio in February to record the follow-up to Return to the Sea. According to Thorburn, the songs set to appear on the album are "10 minutes long with innumerable key & tempo changes, modulation, [and] genre-meddling bombastic progressive rock existential death-defying dangerousness."
As for dropping the alias, Thorburn states that he would have done so sooner if not for the following reason: "I thought it would be weird to sing a song like Rough Gem (which I've since disowned) without such a glittery, jewel-encrusted nom de plume."
You can read the entire news update here.