Eager fans flood Radiohead website after album announcement

Radiohead's website is up and running again, after waves of fans around the world caused the site to crash on Monday.

The band's site operators "are working on the current gear-grinding," guitarist Jonny Greenwood posted in a message on the site.

"It's getting busy in there busier than expected. So if you please bear with us, it should get cleared out soon. Thanks for your patience with the site and interest in the record."

The band announced late Sunday night that its newest album, In Rainbows, would be released next week as a digital download via their website for whatever price fans chose to pay for it.

A band spokesman told the BBC that the site collapse came after U.K. fans began logging onto the site soon after the announcement, followed by fans on the East Coast of North America and then the West Coast.

Radiohead is also offering a deluxe physical copy of In Rainbows via the band's website, to be shipped in early December.

The special "discbox" set will comprise the new album both on CD and vinyl, digital photographs and other artwork, lyric booklets and a second disc of additional songs. Purchase of the physical album package priced at 40.00 (about $81) also includes the digital download.

In Rainbows is the band's seventh album and its first without a record label. The experimental, award-winningrock band fulfilled its contract with EMI with the 2003 album Hail to the Thief.