Method for perceptual spectral decoding of an audio signal, the method comprising: decoding spectral coefficients recovered from a bitstream into decoded spectral coefficients of an initial set of spectral coefficients; spectrum filling of said initial set of spectral coefficients into a set of reconstructed spectral coefficients; said spectrum filling comprising noise filling of spectral holes by setting spectral coefficients in said initial set of spectral coefficients that are not received in said bitstream equal to elements derived from said decoded spectral coefficients; and converting said set of reconstructed spectral coefficients of a frequency domain into an audio signal of a time domain, characterised in that said noise filling comprises creation of a spectral codebook by concatenating the perceptually relevant spectral coefficients of said decoded spectral coefficients, whereby said noise filling of spectral holes comprises setting of spectral coefficients in said initial set of spectral coefficients equal to elements selected from said spectral codebook according to at least one criterion; one of the at least one criterion being selecting elements from said spectral codebook in index order starting from the low frequency end, wherein indices i are assigned to the spectral coefficients and indices j are assigned to the elements of the spectral codebook, wherein the spectral holes are filled by increasing the index j as much as the index i, and by a cyclic use of the spectral codebook if there are more spectral holes than elements in the spectral codebook; and said spectrum filling further comprises bandwidth extension. decoding spectral coefficients recovered from a bitstream into decoded spectral coefficients of an initial set of spectral coefficients; spectrum filling of said initial set of spectral coefficients into a set of reconstructed spectral coefficients; said spectrum filling comprising noise filling of spectral holes by setting spectral coefficients in said initial set of spectral coefficients that are not received in said bitstream equal to elements derived from said decoded spectral coefficients; and converting said set of reconstructed spectral coefficients of a frequency domain into an audio signal of a time domain, characterised in that said noise filling comprises creation of a spectral codebook by concatenating the perceptually relevant spectral coefficients of said decoded spectral coefficients, whereby said noise filling of spectral holes comprises setting of spectral coefficients in said initial set of spectral coefficients equal to elements selected from said spectral codebook according to at least one criterion; one of the at least one criterion being selecting elements from said spectral codebook in index order starting from the low frequency end, wherein indices i are assigned to the spectral coefficients and indices j are assigned to the elements of the spectral codebook, wherein the spectral holes are filled by increasing the index j as much as the index i, and by a cyclic use of the spectral codebook if there are more spectral holes than elements in the spectral codebook; and said spectrum filling further comprises bandwidth extension. <EOS>