Blur

After a week of intense tabloid speculation, Blur members have confirmed that the band will enter the studio later this year.

Speaking to The Independent, the band’s drummer, Dave Rowntree said timidly that the group would see how studio sessions turn out before committing themselves to the project.

He said: 'We will spend one week recording and see what happens. We're dipping our toes in the water. We have not made any decision but we'll see how we feel and if the spark is there.'

While stressing the band were not technically reforming as "we have never split up", he said other studio get-togethers had led to the creation of albums and subsequent gigs. "That tends to be the way albums start," he said. "That's how the last one started. We get together and either we say 'it's not the right time' or we say 'brilliant'. We don't want to pre-judge the issue right now."

Asked whether he was confident the session would lead to the band making a comeback, Alex James, the band's bass player, said: "I do sincerely hope so but there's no point doing it unless all of us want to because that was what was so good about it. I'm hoping that it'll happen but there's nothing set in stone."

The prospect of a Blur studio reunion and possible albumfollows a spate of recent revivals and reformations by groups such as The Police, who have undertaken a tour decades after splitting up, and Take That.