The band are appearing in a studio interview in this weeks *cough* N *cough* M *cough* E (plug over) and it appears the album is actually more or less finished.
According to the magazine:
<i>In a world exclusive, we take a special trip to New York City and spend 24 hours locked-up in the studio with Arctic Monkeys to witness the making of their third album. </i>
Nice, but check out the image (Tom Oxley), since when did Arctic Monkeys have a hippie (far right) and an old man in the band (far left). Weird.
Hopefully the album will be out before the end of the year (yikes!).