Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight Announced

Linkin Park's new logo which will be featured on their new album on March 6, a countdown of 100,000 minutes began on Linkin Park's official website. If 100,000 is divided by 60 and then further divided by 24, this gives the date on which the album will be released that is May 15th, 2007. And for further accuracy the Linkin Park Underground confirmed that Linkin Park's long awaited third release, titled Minutes to Midnight, will be released Tuesday, May 15th in the United States, and Monday May 14th in all other countries.

The first single is to be released April 2nd, and is titled "What I've Done."

"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."

"This was a year-and-a-half long process of really hard work and experimentation in the studio that yielded about 150 rough songs," guitarist Brad Delson told Billboard.com. The band recorded 17 tracks and is now whittling down which ones will make the final cut. "Not only is this album incredibly diverse, but the depth of the material is really strong,” Delson says.

The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, and lead singer Chester Bennington said that the band is writing about "things they wouldn't have touched a few years back."

Mike Shinoda explained that Minutes to Midnight is composed of sounds made by a practically Arcade Fire-esque array of instruments including banjos, marimbas and vintage guitars and amps. “People have always tried to lump us in with the whole rap/rock stereotype, but we don’t intentionally want to be part of that scene. We’ve always had our own personality and I think it really shows on this record.” Shinoda tells us the title of the album has two meanings: “It’s definitely a reference to the doomsday clock…the Apocalypse…a metaphor for death and rebirth, but it could also be applied to the music industry, sort of tongue-in-cheek.” While there are no special artists featured on the album, Shinoda shares a co-producing credit with the Grammy award-winning producer Rick Rubin, “I was raised on his music and to now be working with him, to be mentored by him, is such a huge thing.”