2016 may finally be the year Metallica fans get a new studio album. James Hetfield predicted a potential fall release for the album, and in a new interview, drummer Lars Ulrich has described what fans can expect from the upcoming effort.

Metallica’s latest release was 2008’s Death Magnetic, which was seen as somewhat of a bounce back after St. Anger was met with heavy criticism. Metallica have remained busy since Death Magnetic with plenty of live shows (including one in Antarctica), a conceptualized concert film and the ill-fated Lulu collaboration with Lou Reed.

Metallica have been working at a somewhat leisurely pace in recent years, as Ulrich describes to Citizens of Humanity. “We’re sort of constantly doing something but never to the point of the needle going in the red, but Metallica really hasn’t sort of shut down since around 2005, and it’s a model that works for us,” Ulrich shares. “We never work at 110 percent to the point where we drive ourselves nuts, but are sort of constantly working at two-thirds, you know—when we make the record we’re writing and we’re recording, but we’re doing it incrementally. There’s always stuff going on. It’s the way we like it. It keeps us engaged.”

As for the sound of Metallica’s 10th studio album, Ulrich explains his perception of its sound. “Hopefully it’ll be out in the fall, and it definitely sounds like Metallica,” Ulrich begins. “It’s probably a little less frenetic than the last record. The last one Rick Rubin really encouraged us to for the first time be inspired by our past. It was the first time we sort of looked in the rearview mirror. This time around it’s a little bit of a different thing. We’re not working with Rick, we’re working with the engineer from the last record, who’s producing, Greg Fidelman. So there’s some of the same production elements at play, but we’re expanding a little bit on the sonics. It’s probably a bit more of a diverse record than the last one.”

Stay tuned to Loudwire for all your updates on Metallica’s upcoming 10th studio album!

See Where Metallica's Albums Landed on the Top 80 Hard Rock + Metal Albums of the 1980s

The Many Faces of Metallica's Lars Ulrich

More From Classic Rock 105.1