I don't think he would have done all the Social Media stuff like "next year we're doing this and that" if he knew. They just signed a contract with the label and he really seemed to look forward to everything. After all, because of Covid he was doing very little in 2020 alltogether. He could only play 3 shows (I'm glad he got the opportunity to at least do those...it would really suck if the last COB concert would have been his last time playing live) and what else to do than going into the studio...most bands use the time for writing and recording now.
But it's really weird we still haven't heard anything official for over a month now.