Linkin Park -- 2010 New Album Preview

The term "grandiose insanity" can mean different things to different people. To Linkin Park, though, it's just another easy way to characterize the sound of their new 2010 album. After much delay and speculation, the California-based rock ensemble now seem poised to release their fourth studio album sometime this year, in what will be their long-awaited follow up to 2007's 'Minutes to Midnight.'

Discussion about the group's fourth studio album actually began as early as October 2008, when singer Chester Bennington announced on his blog that Linkin Park were constructing a "concept album." After entering the studio in December of that year, the group announced their intentions to release the record by mid-2009. They eventually got sidetracked, though, by other projects, including a collaborative effort with Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack for 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.'

Last May, though, Linkin Park confirmed that they'd once again entered the studio, and would have an album ready for release in 2010. The band says that although they've returned to the same studio in which they recorded their 'Hybrid Theory' and 'Meteora' albums, the sound on their new 2010 album will be markedly different from their previous work -- and, apparently, from anything else in mainstream music right now. As co-frontman Mike Shinoda told MTV back in January, their still untitled album is "an entirely different style of music than anything we've done before. It's hard to place. People keep asking me, 'What does it sound like?' and it's hard to describe. When people hear it, they're going to have a tough time saying that it falls into a category."

The album still doesn't have a tracklist, nor an official release date, but according to MTV, we should expect to see the Rick Rubin-produced record drop toward the end of 2010. MTV also reports that Bennington independently said that the album could be ready for release as early as June. Linkin Park's label, Warner Bros. Records, hasn't confirmed either report, so the official drop date may very well sneak up on all of us. But then again, that's probably the kind of unpredictability you'd expect from anything drenched in "grandiose insanity."