This one’s been long-awaited: a new album from Green Day, to be called 21st Century Breakdown, and to be released sometime in May, this year!

Some lucky music journos have listened to a sneak preview of the album, helpfully giving clues to what the final track listing may be.

Song titles you might expect on the finished product are:

1. 21st Century Breakdown
2. Know Your Enemy
3. Before The Lobotomy
4. March Of The Dogs
5. Restless Heart Syndrome
6. 21 Guns

Although, there are a full sixteen tracks on the Butch Vig-produced album, so expect more to be revealed over the coming days and months.

SPIN magazine are buzzing about the new tracks:

Our verdict? We love it. (The chicken was pretty good, too.)

In the six songs, Green Day keep their punk urgency and lyrical angst, but expand their ambition. They use dramatic musical shifts reminiscent of Queen, and Who-like classic rock guitars. There’s even a poignant piano ballad that Fiona Apple could love.

Early indications from MTV suggest that Green Day are clearly not intimidated by the success of American Idiot and are going all-out with bigger sound and more ambitions composition:

The title track…takes off on a multi-sectional sprint, featuring big, clean guitar chords (played windmill-style, à la Pete Townshend, one imagines) one minute, cacophonous drum breakdowns the next — not to mention a "We Are the Champions"-style interlude.

So, I hope that gives you an idea of what’s on the horizon from Green Day this year. Something to get excited about if you were disappointed by U2’s latest offering? It sounds like it – a clear evolution of the Green Day sound that’ll carry along the existing fans and earn the band a few more along the way.