Chris Rea with special guest Nell Bryden

Following his sell-out UK & European tour in 2010 and 2009's UK Top Ten album Still So Far To Go - The Best Of Chris Rea, one of the UK's foremost singers and songwriters is set to return to the UK in 2012 for a full UK tour including the Metro Radio Arena on Saturday 31st March 2012.

The tour will be in support of the release of his first new material in over a decade. The elaborate 3CD & 2DVD 'The Santo Spirito Project' will include a brand new studio album and 2 bespoke feature films on DVD, written and directed by Chris. The first feature is a raw and brutally honest chronicle on bullfighting and features neo-classical & Spanish themed gypsy music & the second feature follows a man through the city of Florence in his search for the truth, on a journey which he may or may not wish he began. The package will retail at the normal price of a CD album.

The music to accompany both special feature films will be contained on 2CDs and Chris explains his rationale for such an ambitious project: "I love creating things and passionately believe we (the artists) should be looking to try new ways of bringing what we do to the public."

Chris's career spans over thirty years and both The Road To Hell in 1989 and Auberge in 1991 debuted at No.1 in the UK, cementing his position as arguably one of the country's finest musicians and songwriters.

His rich catalogue includes such classic songs as Fool (If You Think It's Over), On The Beach, Let's Dance, Josephine, Stainsby Girls and I Can Hear Your Heartbeat, Working On It, The Road To Hell (Part 2), Auberge, God's Great Banana Skin and Julia.

The Santo Spirito Project will be released by Rhino UK, a division of Warner Music, on Monday September 5th on CD/DVD only at no more than the price of a normal CD single album and will not be available for digital download until December 2011.

His long awaited autobiography The Road To Hell & Back Again, will also be out in 2012.