The fourth installment of the Projekt Revolution trek is set to kick off July 25 with tour founders Linkin Park on the main stage alongside My Chemical Romance Taking Back Sunday,HIM,Placebo and Julien-K.The second stage, dubbed the Revolution Stage, will play host to Mindless Self Indulgence, Saosin, The Bled, Styles of Beyond and Madina Lake.The outing will traverse the US into September, and also includes a stop in Toronto. A couple of cities, including the launch city, will be announced in about two weeks; the rest of the schedule is confirmed and listed below. Tickets go on sale nationwide May 19.Projekt Revolution--which has partnered with sponsors Major League Baseball, "Halo 3" for Xbox 360, Monster Energy Drink, Etnies and Nowwhat.com--merges a variety of musical styles handpicked by the members of Linkin Park."Linkin Park is thrilled to be joined by this amazing group of artists and I know the audience will share in our excitement," vocalist Chester Bennington said in a statement.Tour organizers and Linkin Park's Music for Relief organization have been working to make the event environmentally conscious, according to a press release. Besides making it a "green" outing, Projekt Revolution and Music for Relief will donate $1 from each ticket to American Forests for their global "re-leaf" program, which plants trees to help lessen the effects of global climate change.Linkin Park will release its third studio album, "Minutes to Midnight," next week. The first single, "What I've Done," is already No. 1 at rock and modern-rock radio.The Grammy-winning band will usher in the new album with a release-eve event May 14 that will see an upcoming Linkin Park concert air simultaneously in movie theaters across the country and online. The group will broadcast its May 11 concert at New York City's Webster Hall as part of National CineMedia's FATHOM series. A list of cinemas running the film is available at FATHOM's website.Linkin Park has sold 40 million records worldwide since its 2000 debut, "Hybrid Theory," which alone moved more than 18 million copies, according to a press release.

Linkin Park burst onto the scene with heavy guitars, Chester Bennigton's vocals that switched from raw to soaring an back again and Mike Shinoda's aggressive rap. It was a sound that was a fresh and welcome change from sameness of early 21st century angst-alt music. It's a shame that a band that was so groundbreaking has turned in such a pedestrian and disappointing effort with "Minutes to Midnight." When "Minutes to Midnight" hits stores, it will be one of the year's most eagerly awaited offerings, but a first listen shows that it yields little of the excitement of the band's major label breakthrough "Hybrid Theory." The same ingredients are mostly in place- the guitar lines are strong and Bennington's fine vocals are front and center, but the sound has been tweaked until it is only a shadow of the music that sold millions of CDs. Bennington seems to have taken on the mantle of undisputed front man, and Mike Shinoda has been relegated to what amounts to "special guest star" status on a few of the songs. The only track that comes close to capturing the magic of Linkin Park's early recordings is "Bleed It Out," the stand out cut in a CD where each song blends into the next with little to distinguish any of the tracks. Linkin Park inspired a lot of bands that populate modern rock radio, but by staying stagnant, the new CD sounds the same as most everything else on the radio. "What I've Done," the first single from the CD, reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, but after only four weeks on the chart it has dropped to number 25. The CD isn't a total loss, and it's not even bad, but it's not the splendid album that Linkin Park has proven they are capable of creating. Expect major sales the first week, but watch as the album sales sink like a rock without solid singles to give the CD legs. Individual tracks to download from iTunes are "Bleed It Out," the fine "The Little Things You Give Away" and "Shadow of the Day." The rest of the CD is for die hard Linkin Park fans only. You have to admire Linkin Park for taking a risk by reworking their sound, but change isn't always good, as "Minutes to Midnight" shows. This CD is little more that a place holder on the charts until the real Linkin Park stand up.

Mike made another timely appearence on the Linkin Park Messageboards last night to talk about the new leak of the album and how he thinks it might effect the overall pleasure of the album and the way it is viewed by the fans:we heard today that the album leaked...so i guess some of you have had a chance to hear what we've been so excited about. we're both excited and disappionted that you're hearing it right now. here's why:it couldn't be more exciting to give you all new music, especially after all the hard work we put into it. this album was almost a year and a half of experiments, mistakes, inspiration, and careful craftsmanship. we put everything we had into these songs, and want you to hear every second of it. i can't wait for you to absorb all the levels of meaning in the songs, and the layers of music, eventually forming your own ideas about what the songs mean to you.at the same time, a leak leaves out some very important parts of this piece of work. we put months of creative energy into the ART of the record, in the booklet, special edition, and big book...almost as long as it took to record hybrid theory. the album has amazing photos, lyrics, and notes about how the songs came together--it's the visual half of the record. on the other hand, the super-special-edition book is packed with exclusive images, stories of the making of the songs, gorgeous art, the CD and a DVD that tells the story, showing the actual moments of inspiration caught on camera. for me, it's almost hard to imagine anyone really experiencing this album without that part of it.even the song sequence alone is very important. it's WAY different to hear the songs in a random order than to listen to this record from beginning to end. at the very least, if you've already downloaded the songs, do us a huge favor and listen to them in the right order...it'll be way more rewarding...that's all we wanted to say. if any of you want to be patient and hold off on downloading the album, and get the proper experience by checking out the actual piece in your hands, we applaud you for your restraint! and to everyone else who can't wait: we can't help but understand, because we're just as excited about this album coming out as you are. either way, thanks for listening, and being a fan of our music.thanks for supporting the band, see you on tour!

Perhaps if the cut-'n'-paste remix record Reanimation hadn't appeared as a stopgap measure in the summer of 2002, Linkin Park's second record, Meteora, would merely have been seen as a continuation of their 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, instead of a retreat to familiar ground. Then again, Reanimation wasn't much more than a way to buy time (along with maybe a little credibility), so it's unfair to say that its dabbling in electronica and hip-hop truly pointed toward a new direction for the group, but it did provide a more interesting listening experience than Meteora, which is nothing more and nothing less than a Hybrid Theory part two. Which isn't to say that Linkin Park didn't put any effort into the record, since it does demonstrate that the group does stand apart from the pack by having the foresight to smash all nu-metal trademarks -- buzzing guitars, lumbering rhythms, angsty screaming, buried scratching, rapped verses -- into one accessible sound which suggests hooks instead of offering them. More importantly, the group has discipline and editing skills, keeping this record at a tight 36 minutes and 41 seconds, a move that makes it considerably more listenable than its peers and, by extension, more powerful, since they know where to focus their energy, something that many nu-metal bands simply do not. (It must be said that there will surely be consumers out there that will question paying a $19.99 retail for a 36-minute-and-41-second record, though some may prefer getting a tight, listenable record at that price instead of a meandering 70-minute mess.) So, it must be said that Meteora does deliver on the most basic level -- it gives the fans what they want, and it does so with energy and without fuss. It's also without surprises, either, which again gives the album a static feeling -- suggesting not a holding pattern for the band, but rather the limits of their chosen genre, which remains so stylistically rigid and formulaic that even with a band who follows the blueprint well, like Linkin Park, it winds up sounding a little samey and insular. Since this is only their second go-round, this is hardly a fatal flaw, but the similarity of Meteora to Hybrid Theory does not only raise the question of where do they go from here, but whether there is a place for them to go at all.