Linkin Park [ tickets ] bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell says that the group is putting the finishing touches on its follow-up to 2003's "Meteora," according to a message he posted this week at the band's MySpace page.

"[O]ur new album has officially entered the 'mixing stage' of the process," Farrell's post reads. "We have put more into the new album than anything we have ever done before. After over a year of writing, recording, and setting unrealistic finish dates for the record (sorry about that!), we are in the home stretch. The new album is very exciting for the six of us, and we can't wait until everyone can hear it!"

Farrell went on to say that the group plans to release the album's first single in March, and also assured fans that some tracks recently leaked to the Internet aren't from the as-yet-untitled set.

"You have heard either 'Qwerty,' or 'Announcement Service Public' ... both tracks that came out of our recording process, but neither of which will be on the album," he wrote, adding that the two aforementioned cuts can be found on the band's latest fan-club-only CD. More info is available at the club's website.

As the world continues to wait for Guns N' Roses [ tickets ]' long-promised, oft-delayed album "Chinese Democracy," Axl Rose and company have rolled out dates for the group's first-ever visit to Africa. The band is scheduled to headline My Coke Fest 2007, which takes place April 27 at Johannesburg's New Market Racecourse, and May 1 at Cape Town's Kenilworth Racecourse, according to South African radio station 5FM. The event will also feature Evanescence and Hoobastank, among others.

"Chinese Democracy" is tentatively due in stores March 6.

Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes is mixing material for his forthcoming solo album, "This Delicate Thing We've Made," a two-disc set that will house 25 tracks, according to a press release.

Tomi Rae Hynie, longtime partner of the late James Brown, has filed a petition in Aiken County, SC, in an effort to reclaim half of the singer's estate, and regain access to his South Carolina home, where she and her 5-year-old son had lived prior to his death, according to the Associated Press.

Brown died Dec. 25 in an Atlanta Hospital. The Associated Press reports that his body remains "in a sealed, gold casket in an undisclosed location awaiting a decision on where to bury it."