COLDPLAY - COLDPLAY ANNOUNCE EP AND ALBUM RELEASE PLANS

Coldplay have confirmed they will release new material as early as December, with a fifth album to follow in 2009.

Speaking to BBC 6Music, frontman Chris Martin said the foursome have already planned as far ahead as releasing a follow-up to Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends by the end of next year.

"We're going to put an EP out at Christmas called Prospects March and we're going to release an album next December to end the decade," he revealed.

The quartet scored their first-ever UK number one single in June with Viva La Vida, the title track from their hugely successful recent album.

In the same month, they also became the first British band since the Spice Girls to achieve a number one single in the US, also with Viva La Vida.

And in what has been a superb year for Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends became the most paid-for downloaded album in digital history as well as selling more than one million copies in its first week on release in the UK and US.

However, Martin joked that the band may take some time off after the release of their as-yet-untitled fifth album.

"We're gonna be 'Whooosh! Where've they gone?', just like Keyser Soze [the villain from crime drama The Usual Suspects]," he said.