Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda has promised fans a genre-breaking new album saying that the band hope it will be something “really cutting edge and really different.

The band are currently half way through writing the follow up to 2007's 'Minutes To Midnight' and plan for a release in early 2010.

However, Shinoda says that they won't be rushing the record and will take a step back if needed to make sure it is the best album they can possibly produce.

He told Rolling Stone: “People just want junk food. They want throw-away junk food music that’s going to make them lethargic and fat. McDonalds is great once in a while, in moderation.

“Eat it every day and you just turn into a slob. We feel the same way about music. We want to hopefully move even more into being able to make more substantial music, and we’ve always been capable of it, but sometimes, there were different things that we got excited about on each record, about what we wanted to write and what we wanted to make and what kind of statement we wanted to make.

“On this record, we’re definitely paying attention to the substance and the nuance, and we hope to make something that’s really cutting edge and really different.”

Describing the record in more depth, Shinoda added: “This isn’t necessarily a record that tells a story about a character or anything like that, but I do hope the record has a sonic identity, from beginning to end, that’s distinguishable from the other stuff we’ve done and distinguishable from everything else out there.

“I would love, at the end of the day, to be able to look at this record, and say its something totally new, totally true to the spirit of the band, and it doesn’t sound like anything else. That’s what we shoot for.”

“I really want a record that sounds different. I would love for this record to be something that has its own identity, and can’t easily be connected to anything else.

“This album will be the kind of food that’s foreign to you, that you haven’t had before, and when you first taste it, you’ll go, ‘This doesn’t taste like anything else I’ve had, but I think I like it.’ We’ll have to make the record and see.”

(by Daniel Melia)