We like rock music more than you. It's just the way it is…

Oh joy of joys! R.E.M. just revealed that they have completed recording their brand new album and are hoping to release it in the spring of 2011.

The band completed recording their album in Berlin at Hansa Studios with producer Jacknife Lee. This is the same studio where albums like David Bowie’s Heroes and U2′s Achtung Baby were also put to tape. Band manager Bertis Downs wrote on the band’s website (via Rolling Stone) a month ago that he wouldn’t “report on the sound or the dimension of the recordings so far, to my ears it all sounds like quite a wonderful set of songs.”

So other than a possible release date, we know nothing else about the follow up to 2008′s Accelerate. But in a recent interview with the BBC, guitarist Peter Buck mentioned that he was “very excited about” the new songs.

Appearing with Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody to promote their new band Tired Pony, Buck said that the collaboration inspired a track for the new album. “There’s at least one piece of music where I kind of thought, ‘This is something Gary would like,” said Buck. “‘This is something he might write,’ and I threw it out there, and I think it’ll be on the next record.”

Tags: R.E.M.