Linkin Park exclusively opened up and said that they’re almost finished with their next album. You can expect to find it in a store near you early next year.

All that needs to be done is to bring in vocalists Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda to record their parts and the LP would be done.

“We’re almost done recording vocals and it’s super swell” Chester wrote on the band’s website LinkinPark.com.

“Mike and I have been putting in a lot of hours in the studio and it’s paying off. I’m glad we decided to do this record.”

It’s not always a good idea to put a musician behind the camera. Sometimes what shows up when a rock star directs his own video is nothing but ego driven slop.

But when Linkin Park’s DJ Joseph Hahn stepped behind the lens, the band ended up with a clip that had people scratching their heads. That’s what you get when you fly a whale through a desert.

“Any criticism I have ever gotten for that video, has always been, ‘What’s up with the whale, dude?'” co-director Nathan “Karma” Cox joked with MTV. He says the whole thing was Joseph’s idea.

“It’s more of an elemental thing” Joseph went on to explain. “Where when you think of a whale, you automatically associate it with water, but it’s a contrast to the environment, because there’s no water in the environment. So it was basically a way to visually connect the ground to the sky to the tower, where we were.”

Call them reworked, reconstructed or – keeping in line with the album title – reanimated, but whatever you do, don’t call the tunes comprising Linkin Park’s forthcoming release remixed.

With Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington’s new verses, and vocal contributions coming from Staind’s Aaron Lewis, Taproot’s Steven Richards and a couple more, calling the songs that comprise ‘Reanimation’, due 30th of July, simply “remixes” doesn’t do them justice. “Reinterpretations” is a term much better suited to the new songs, some with completely new choruses and alternate melodies that may surprise even longtime Linkin Park fans.

Speaking to Mike about ‘Reanimation’, he had this to say “In my opinion there’s some pretty guitar riffs, but at the same time it’s not super heavy. It’s really tastefully done. I think the beats are really awesome. On ‘Hybrid Theory’ they’re really cool, but the beats on this album are a lot more original and have a lot more character and really hit hard. The only way to describe the whole thing is that it’s a little bit harder and a little bit softer at the same time. We feel a little bit more comfortable and a little bit more mature.”The first offering from ‘Reanimation’ would be ‘Points Of Authority’. An animated video for the retooled ‘Points Of Authority’, originally ‘Hybrid Theory’, which had spent months in the making, has neared completion. Directed by Linkin Park’s DJ Joseph Hahn, the clip should be completely finalized by the end of the month and should surface real soon.

With little but formalities standing in the way of ‘Reanimation”s completion, Linkin Park are in heavy pre-production for their full-length follow-up to 2000’s ‘Hybrid Theory.’ They’ll hit a studio later this summer with hopes to have the album in stores in early 2003.