(PR) The anticipation and rumors about multi-platinum Grammyฎ award-winning Linkin Park's third studio album were finally answered today, with the announcement that the record, entitled Minutes to Midnight, will hit stores May 15th on Warner Bros. Records/Machine Shop Recordings. Co-produced by Mike Shinoda and 2007 Grammy Producer of The Year Rick Rubin (U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Run DMC), Minutes to Midnight was recorded at the infamous Mansion at Laurel Canyon and is already being touted by critics who have heard it as the band's best and most important work to date.The first single, "What I've Done," will be released worldwide April 2, 2007.
We have put more into the new album than anything we have ever done before, says bassist Dave Phoenix Farrell. The band spent over 14 months in the studio and wrote more than 100 song demos in the making of Minutes To Midnight, an album which vocalist Mike Shinoda sees as, "a breakthrough in the development of the band's sound. We wrote in new ways, and used instruments and equipment we hadn't experimented with, from vintage guitars and amps to mellotron to Rick's original 808 drum machine he used on the Beastie Boys first record. We tried to question every step in our songwriting process." Producer Rick Rubin agrees, "They really are reinventing themselves, it doesn't sound like rap-rock. There's very strong songwriting. It's very melodic...a progressive record."
The coming weeks will see the launch of LPTV, a series of webisodes that can be viewed on www.linkinpark.com. The series will focus on unseen footage of the history of Linkin Park, building up to an inside look at the studio experience of the new album, says Farrell. Linkin Park will headline the second day of this summers Bamboozle music festival on May 6 in New Jersey before embarking on a headlining European tour in June. Next month, the band expects to announce plans for "a summer tour with an un-missable lineup," says Shinoda. I know thats not a word, but this tour is worth making up words for.
