Snow Patrol are to release a new album next year.

The alternative rock group - consisting of Gary Lightbody,

Jonny Quinn, Nathan Connolly, Paul Wilson and Johnny McDaid - are ''gutted'' their next LP won't be ready in time for their 20-year anniversary but insist it'll be done for 2015.

Speaking to Gigwise, Gary said: ''There won't be a Snow Patrol record this year, it will be next year.''

The new album, which will be the follow-up to the band's 2011 studio collection 'Fallen Empires', was delayed as Gary admitted he had suffered a case of writer's block.

He said previously: ''Oh God, I never want to go through that again. You've done the thing that you do every day of your life for 16 years and suddenly it's removed from you.

''I just couldn't write a single word. I was terrified. I couldn't pick up my laptop, my notepad, or anything, for fear that I was going to sit there and stagnate.

''I was actually catatonic for most of it.''

However, the frontman was eventually able to overcome the block by penning different tracks until he got it spot on.

He said: ''The best advice I got, and this sounds ridiculous, was 'writers write'. Avoiding writing is the worst possible thing to do - but that's what I was doing. I was too frightened to even pick a pen up. So writers write: Even though it sounds so prosaic, it's absolutely true. You do it until it works, and that's what I did.''