The song ‘Tudo no Amor’ (Everything in Love) is already being played on national radio, although the album’s title has yet to be announced. According to the band’s lead singer, Manuela Azevedo, the song is very redolent of Godinho.

"We sent him the template, the half song as we like to say, and soon came a proposal of lyrics that fit perfectly: a wonderful text by Sergio on the light and shadow in love, in passions and in relationships that fits very well with the composition by Hélder” Gonçalves, the band’s guitarist, Azevedo told Lusa.

Along with Godinho lyricists Carlos Tê, Arnaldo Antunes and Samuel Úria are all once more contributing to the Clã album, set to music by Gonçalves. But there is also a newbie: Portuguese rapper Capicua.

"The invitation to Capicua came from [our] following her work and the way she writes, for her and for others,” said Azevedo. “You realise that she is someone who loves the Portuguese language very much and this is always a good starting point for us.”

The invitations to the lyricists are also based on “admiration for the work of these authors, for the way they write and for their creative personality", she said, adding that “in this creative personality that there is a common territory or a territory [that is] not so common" and which "challenges and excites" the band’s members.

"That's always the reason behind an invitation to collaborate, whether to write lyrics or to share the stage," Azevedo concluded.

According to Gonçalves, the process of creating a Clã album "varies greatly". In the case of the new release – the successor of ‘Current’ (2014), "the songs were already all written, without lyrics" when they were sent to the lyricists.

“This is always a very complicated puzzle because you have to imagine if that person will like the music or if they will challenge it,” he explained. “More than once we thought … 'this is probably not the kind of thing that this person writes, but let's challenge them to do this' - also to try to discover new paths between all [of us], discover a language that is more than just a little bit of one and a little piece of the other."

The lyricists are given the songs already "with some identity ", he said, adding that this is "very subjective, because a song can talk about a lot".

The tracks for the new album had been ready to receive lyrics "since the end of last year", Gonçalves said. "And this year was just practically this work on the texts, on the letters, looking for the right thing, the ideal and continuous thing, in reality."

Between now and next spring, he admitted, "there are details to be finalised".

Azevedo added that it one or the other song still has "lyrics … pending" and there is "some studio work” still needed to improve them.

This new album also features a new lineup of the band. This summer, after almost 27 years with the same members, Clã announced the departure of two of the founders, Pedro Rito (bass) and Fernando Gonçalves (drums).

"There being two new musicians [Pedro Oliveira on drums and Pedro Santos on bass] ends up contaminating, somehow, the band,” said the singer. “We are not the same, but what is the main brand of Clã’s music, which comes a lot from Hélder’s composition, remains the same. In that sense Clã remains the same as ever, despite there being this change of members."

Gonçalves agrees: "they’re replacing musicians in the same functions [as] we are not taking out a drummer and a bass player and adding two saxophonists; the functions are the same and the idea is to maintain the same work process, with new input from them."

Clã also includes Miguel Ferreira on synthesisers and Pedro Biscaia on keyboards.