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.

Biggest music news of the day is the claim that Green Day have released a series of songs under the alias Foxboro Hot Tubs. Well, not officially, but there are a ton of sites speculating that the vocalist on the Foxboro Hot Tubs songs is Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong.

Believe it or not, this was originally reported by mp3.com back in December, so it isn’t exactly red hot news. However, apparently Armstrong hinted that the band had an excess of new material, possibly enough for nearly 3 albums.

This is not the first time Green Day has secretly released new music as a side project. In 2003, the band put out an album called Money Money 2020 under the band name The Network. That sound was a mix of punk and new wave and all three members took on lead vocal duties.

Allegedly, you can download a number of tracks from the official Foxboro website, but I was only able to snag one song, Mother Mary. It’s very like Green Day does rock n roll via some very punchy punk guitar. Me like!

Anyway, if you want to catch more Foxboro Hot Tubs, head over to their MySpace page and listen to the tracks there. You. Won’t. Be. Disappointed.

Believe me.