New Zealand songstress Ladyhawke says exhaustion from constant touring is the main reason it took her four years to release her new album.
Ladyhawke's 2008 self-titled debut album went platinum in New Zealand and gold in Australia and Britain, earning her a Brit Award nomination for International Female Solo Artist.
But it's taken until this year for the release of her follow-up Anxiety, which is due out in March, as she wasn't up to meeting an earlier release date of October 2011.
"I had no idea how exhausted I'd be after I finished touring. I was physically incapable of doing anything," she told Britain's NME music magazine.
"I tried to start recording about a month after I finished on tour and I turned up at the studio and just fell asleep. I was like a zombie."
Ladyhawke, whose real name is Pip Brown, said Anxiety is darker and with a greater rock emphasis, its influences including the Pixies, Blur and Nirvana.
It was called Anxiety "because every song has that sort of feeling, my mindset throughout the recording was a mixture of being so tired and just being worried the whole time".
NZN