A new Korn album -- the follow-up to 2007's "Untitled" -- could be out "within the year" according to bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, while the group is also continuing work on a planned album of covers.

Fieldy tells Billboard.com that he, founding bandmates Jonathan Davis and James "Munky" Shaffer, and drummer Ray Luzier have been "really banging it out" in his basement studio in Laguna Hills, Calif., coming up with "a bunch of songs" with original Korn producer Ross Robinson. He adds that "there's nothing lyrically put down yet," but Davis may be taking a studio on the road when Korn kicks off its tour with Avenged Sevenfold on Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., to begin laying down ideas.

Working with Robinson again, Fieldy notes, is "really bring out, like, old school Korn. It's heavy riffs and we're trying to strip it down raw and get those heavy groove riffs that make you want to hop around or jump around or just go crazy. We're going towards that." Fieldy says Korn hoped to have a new song or two to road-test during the tour but abandoned that plan because of the plethora of material that's been coming out during the sessions -- including covers of songs such as nine inch nails' "Head Like a Hole," "Faith No More's "We Care a Lot" and the Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way" that will be part of a separate, all-covers album that currently has no release forecast.

"We're just going to take a little break now (from recording) and come back fresh," Fieldy says. "We've been home for over a year now. We really want to get out on stage. We put together a set of a lot of Korn classic songs; I'm excited to play some of these songs we haven't played in years."

Fieldy has plenty of other projects on his plate these days. He's nearing completion on "Surrounded By Liars," the first album by Stillwell, his "street metal" band with rapper Q Unique and POD drummer Wuv Bernardo in which Fieldy plays guitar. He's also started an all-instrumental "funk, fusion, jazz-type" solo album and has two book projects in the works to follow up his memoir, "Got the Life;" one is collection of affirmations and thoughts called "Fieldy's Daily Dope," while the other is an experimental, non-fiction idea that's still being developed.