Best Of 2012: #12

#12 - Linkin Park - Living Things

Linkin Park's fifth album takes yet another sidestep into a new sound and style. After they got slated for third album Minutes To Midnight, and lost further fans with the massively different follow-up A Thousand Suns, this new one sounds a lot more like pop with a heavy twist in places. Also, the raps are back in force, noticeably, straight from the punchy opener Lost In The Echo. Additionally, this time round, the songs are shorter and to the point, none of them breaking the four-minute mark. It's not all happy pop-esque music either. Lies Greed Misery and Victimized are just onslaughts of aggression, the latter one popping out of nowhere - jarring a little bit as it comes after the melodies and beautiful imagery of album highlight Castle Of Glass. But they all seem to follow a distinctive verse-chorus structure. The only one not conforming to this, essentially, is Until It Breaks, which sort of shifts randomly between various styles. But the closing tracks follow this little mishap up and more than makes up for it - Tinfoil and Powerless form a sort of two-part ending, the former being a short instrumental, the latter being a huge, powerful finale, contrary to what the title might suggest. Overall, this one or A Thousand Suns remain at the top of my favourite Linkin Park albums (Sorry, Hybrid Theory fans) but they're far too different to really compare.

RECOMMEND: Burn It Down, Castle of Glass, Powerless
LOW POINTS: Skin To Bone, Until It Breaks

Linkin Park - Living Things

Artwork


Tracklist
01. Lost In The Echo
02. In My Remains
03. Burn It Down
04. Lies Greed Misery
05. I'll Be Gone
06. Castle Of Glass
07. Victimized
08. Roads Untravelled
09. Skin To Bone
10. Until It Breaks
11. Tinfoil
12. Powerless

The album will be released June 25th, and has been preceded by a single, Burn It Down, which you can have a listen to below.

Linkin Park Announce New Single

Linkin Park have announced the release of a new single. Burn It Down will be released April 16th, and is the first single from their upcoming fifth album, which is currently untitled but set to be released later this year.

Best Of 2010 - #6

Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns



I've always enjoyed Linkin Park albums, and despite all the complaints surrounding Minutes To Midnight and the direction taken on this new album, I think they just get better every album. That's right, I think Hybrid Theory is their worst album (but is still good) - shock horror, I know.

The band have changed direction so far that they're not really noticeable as the same band anymore, but the new direction is far more what I like to listen to. Epic songs such as The Catalyst and Waiting For The End were stuck in my head for several days after my first listen, and it wasn't too long before the other standouts made their way in - Blackout and When They Come For Me are my other favourites.

One thing that annoys me about this album, however, is that despite showing 15 tracks, a grand total of 9 are actually proper songs. Of the remaing 6, 4 are interludes designed to make the album flow as a whole, but end up being slightly irritating (for example, 18 seconds of crickets and booms makes up the fourth track Empty Spaces) and 2 take lyrics from other songs and use them in different ways. However, those aren't as irritating and work far better in making the album more coherent and tied together.

But let me take nothing away from the album; it is definitely my favourite Linkin Park album no matter how little it sounds like Hybrid Theory-era Linkin Park.

SCORE


Previous albums: Hybrid Theory (6/10), Meteora (7/10), Minutes To Midnight (7/10)