To me, "later in the year" means exactly anything....it's only February, so of course everything after March/April is 'later in the year'. But I do hope they're clever and release the album along with the movie or slightly after it.
The worst thing that can happen is another album that no one knows about and that has a life span of two weeks in the UK, four in Australia and no life at all elsewhere because there's been no airplay and no one knows about it. I'd rather wait a bit longer and then see him do extremely well.