AFTER months of speculation, Keane are to return with a new album on September 20.

Co-produced by the East Sussex band and David Kosten, Cause And Effect will be released through Island Records.

Recorded in London and Sussex, the 11 songs are preceded by first single The Way I Feel, whose accompanying video has been filmed by Kevin Godley, the director of Keane's Is It Any Wonder and Chaplin's Still Waiting videos.

Cause And Effect forms Keane's fifth studio album, after 2004's Hopes And Fears, 2006'sUnder The Iron Sea, 2008's Perfect Symmetry and 2012's Strangeland, all chart toppers, by the way.

The birth of their first album in seven years came as a surprise even to the band. Singer Tom Chaplin had released two solo albums, The Wave and Twelve Tales Of Christmas, but missed his old sparring partner ,Tim Rice-Oxley.

"I found myself wondering how I had come to let this very enigmatic and important relationship in my life drift," says Chaplin.

Meanwhile Rice-Oxley found his life falling apart. From the ashes, he had written an album’s worth of personal songs, fuelled by humour as well as pain.

When Chaplin, bassist Jesse Quin and drummer Richard Hughes heard the songs, they were drawn to them immediately, both sonically and lyrically.

"Hopes And Fears was a break-up album too, but it was about a break-up when I was 19," says Rice-Oxley. "It’s a bit different when you’re older and you’ve got kids. Your whole little world shifts on its axis."

Glad to be back, he adds: "We’re not some heritage act. We’ve got a lot of great music in us."