Linkin Park Working On "Beat-Driven" New Album

Get ready for some club-bangers from Linkin Park at some point in 2010.

OK, we're mostly kidding, but the band, who are working on the follow-up to 2007's Minutes To Midnight with producer Rick Rubin (Slayer, Gossip) are reportedly using keyboards and programmed drums more on the as-yet-untitled disc than they ever have before. You know what that means... groove.

MC Mike Shinoda told Spin.com the band are about "halfway done" their fourth album, and he says Linkin Park are working to "redefine" themselves on this release. Rubin also produced Minutes To Midnight.

"I feel like on [2000's] Hybrid Theory we wanted to introduce ourselves to the world with a certain sound," he said. "Then on [2003's] Meteora we were trying to show that we weren't a fluke and we could do the sound that made us successful a second time.

"By the time we got to Minutes To Midnight, we wanted to break down that sound and go outside the confines. Now that we've done that, we feel like we can do anything."

Shinoda told Spin.com while he thinks it's "hard" to describe what the new material sounds like, he says it's "more beat-driven" and works with keyboards and drum machines more than the band's previous work.

"It sounds brand new," he said. "The thing is, there are so many different ways to make music these days with virtual instruments, software applications, physical instruments and computer programs.

"Then when you get in the position of being able to use almost any of it — that's what we did on Minutes To Midnight. We wanted to play with as many instruments and sounds as we could."

Shinoda previously described the disc as "grandiose insanity."

Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory was the second-highest-selling rock album of the decade, according to Billboard.com. The publication also recently revealed that Nickelback were the decade's top-selling band.