Soundgarden have spoken about their plans for their comeback album and have said that they believe it “picks up where they left off” when they split up in 1996.

The band, who performed a triumphant comeback set at Download Festival on Sunday (June 10), told NME in a video which you can see by scrolling up to the top of the page and clicking that their new album would be “very rich” and “diverse”.

Asked about their plans for their first studio album since 1996’s Down On The Upside, singer Chris Cornell said: “We have an album coming out in the fall. It’s kind of hard to describe, it’s sort of picking up where we left off. There’s a lot of different feels on the album.”

He continued: “We’re a band where every single member contributes music so that makes it very diverse. It’s a very rich album with a lot of different moods to it.”

Then asked if the band’s recent single “Live To Rise” was an indication of things to come, Cornell said that the album’s sound was couldn’t simply be summed up with one song.

He said of this: “It’s great to put out a new song after so long. If you look at the history of our band, you can’t just listen to one song or take one song out of context and say ‘This is what we sound like’.”

He continued: “I’m looking forward to putting out a whole album, where you get a collection of songs. We’re an album-orientated band, so I look forward to getting into long-form listening. That seems to have disappeared over the last 10 years, people seem to know be more into one song at a time.”

The singer also spoke about how the band reunited, adding: “We met up because we wanted to take responsibility for the legacy of the band. Once we were together and hanging out, we thought we should do a surprise show and play five songs. And then they we thought we’d do a real show, and then we should do a tour. Once we were in a room and playing music, it naturally led to writing songs.”

Early bird tickets for next year’s Download Festival are set to go on sale this Friday (June 15).

A limited amount of tickets will be available from 9am (BST) at Downloadfestival.com for the event, which will take place June 14-16, 2013 at Donington Park.