Everything you need to know about The Rolling Stones' new album in a decade

After launching "Exhibitionism," an exhibition on their history, The Rolling Stones recently dropped a huge surprise by announcing that a new studio album is on the cards.

Although a release date is not confirmed yet, guitarist Ronnie Wood said that it will be released "this year" in an interview with Associated Press. He said: "We got on a blues streak. We cut 11 blues in two days. [sic]" Wood also said that the upcoming album will consist of mostly originals and a few covers.

It is not surprising that the album will have cover songs as The Rolling Stones originally started off by covering various blues and rock n roll artistes of the time and never really stopped recording covers since then.

A blues record by The Rolling Stones will be refreshing to see as they were originally a blue band to begin with, before incorporating elements of genres such as reggae, folk, rock n roll, garage rock and hard rock into their sound.

The album will be the band's 25th studio album and their first one in a decade after 2005's "A Bigger Bang." After the release of the album and its subsequent promotional tours, the band took a hiatus from touring. They resumed performing live from 2012 to mark their 50^th anniversary. The band has been active for 54 years now.