Thrice has posted an update on MySpace about their new album. You can read the message below.

As a lot of you may know, for the past month or so, weve been writing and recording our next album. We didnt want to say anything official until wed finalized a lot of the details, but now that were getting rolling on it, we want you guys to be the first to know what the plans are for this album.

We have started writing and recording a 4 disc concept record, with each disc being themed sonically and thematically to correspond with the four natural elements – earth, air, water and fire. The final album will have somewhere between 20 and 25 songs, divided between the 4 discs.

We are approaching the whole project in a new way for us, both writing and recording. Writing with these elements in mind, we are letting them shape the direction of the songs sonically and thematically. And for the first time, were recording the record ourselves as we write it, freeing us up to change things as we go.

We are very excited about the project and are looking forward to sharing more details as the record takes shape. Were also in the process of setting up a site dedicated to keeping you up to date on our progress, so keep a look out for that in the near future.

For our friends on the west coast, we have two events to talk about. The first is the Race for the Cure later this month. Well be doing the race this year along with our friends Chuck Ragan and The Cold War Kids. Dustin, Chuck, and the Cold War Kids will be doing a special acoustic show after exclusively for those who attend the Race with us. All of the sign up details are posted on our MySpace page.

Also, we wil be heading out on a few dates in October, with two awesome bands – These Arms are Snakes and Planes Mistaken for Stars. Were putting together a brand new setlist, digging up some old songs we havent played in a while, songs weve never played live before, and a couple of the new songs were working on.

Stay tuned for more details about the elements, videos, and pictures. Well get to all of that as the album progresses. We look forward to seeing you all soon.

In a recent article with MTV, Thrice stated that they will be spreading their next LP over four albums. Here is a statement from the article.

According to frontman Dustin Kensrue, “this record we’re working on now will be, by far, our most ambitious effort.” And he might be right. The singer said his band’s taking the double-album concept and squaring it.

“There’s going to be four discs, and they will each be themed differently,” Kensrue said. “It will be a large body of music â┚¬Ã¢â‚¬ maybe around 25 songs or so. I’ve never been a fan of double albums; I’m a fan of shorter records. This will kind of be just multiple, shorter records, and each one will be self-sufficient. But also, they all tie into each other. We have a lot of bass material written for it, and we’re kind of at this point where we have the core parts of the songs written, and we’ve been getting together and trying to flesh those out.

“We’re actually recording it ourselves too,” he continued. “We are kind of trying to approach it in a different manner: We’re recording pieces of it and building it and shifting it around. We did that sort of on the last record, with songs like ‘Atlantic.’ We had the basic idea and we started finishing it off while we were recording it.”

Kensrue said Thrice plan to spend the rest of the summer writing material for the yet-untitled album â┚¬Ã¢â‚¬ as they’ve been for some time now â┚¬Ã¢â‚¬ and they’d like to record it this fall, with the hope that it will be out next spring. Vheissu has sold close to 200,000 copies since its release last September (see “Thrice Going Underground â┚¬Ã¢â‚¬ In A Sense â┚¬Ã¢â‚¬ For Enigmatic Vheissu”).