Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight
I am not a fan of hip hop. The appeal of that entire subculture remains a mystery to me. Yet Linkin Park, by shunning a “gangster” image even early on was able to get me hooked on (some of) their catchy fusions of hip hop with alternative rock, a genre in which I was somewhat more comfortable.
Their latest album, Minutes To Midnight, is a huge break - stylistically as well as thematically - from their previous two albums. The songs are more contemplative and less “noisy” for the sake of heaviness, and they’ve ditched their “troubled child” image (which at times seemed almost as ridiculous as the gangster image) in favor of something no less angry, but more respectable in its focus - not towards their immediate emotional discomfort, but to more far reaching problems in the human condition.
Though they promised at the album’s onset that they were moving past the nu-metal/rap-rock, rapping is hardly absent. One of the more interesting moments on the album was Bleed It Out, a rap song with a rock chorus set to a square dance beat. Hands Held High was another high point - a long and cynical, yet oddly inspiring rap ballad performed over the background of an organ and picked guitar.
The heaviness of previous albums is matched only in one song - No More Sorrow - a Falscher Heiland-esque spout of anger against a deceptive leader. More common is the sound of their single What I’ve Done - a milder (but hardly soft) rock infused not with full-fledged rap, but occasionally sounds and scratches still somewhat reminiscent of their hip-hop roots.
The album certainly has its low points - non-standout tracks like Given Up and Leave Out All The Rest, for example - but I think this is a promising new direction for Linkin Park - with another album or two like this they could conceivably shake off completely the angsty shackles of their first two.
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4 Responses
May 21 at 3:09 pm
Nu Album isn’t that bad, it is technically nu metal and I like that, specially given up is a nu metal song and I am happy.
May 24 at 4:18 am
I really like the new album
Jun 02 at 11:48 am
I like the new album. “Bleed It Out” kicks ass, and is easily the best track.
“Leave out all the rest”.. I actually like the verses, but the refrain isn’t that great.
Jun 06 at 6:25 pm
Honestly, I think its pretty ho-hum. I applaud them for not returning to their last two albums, but the absence of Mike Shinoda on most of the album (except on the keys for alot of it) really hurts LP. I need to take it in a few more times to have an actually educated opinion however.