Review Summary: Hardly the next nu-metal album, but a great album nonetheless.
Ah yes, Linkin Park. The band that has been pretty much scorned by their fans since the release of their 2007 album "Minutes to Midnight". Their two studio albums before that were solid nu-metal albums with chart-topping singles aplenty, featuring Chester Bennington's and Mike Shinoda's vocals (singing and rapping, respectively) over a powerful, polished landscape of heavy guitars and DJ scratches. For Minutes to Midnight, the band made a more alternative rock album as an attempt to escape the "nu-metal box" they were trapped in, and thus the fans started to turn on them. In 2010, they came out with the even more experimental album known as "A Thousand Suns", which split the fanbase straight down the middle. You can't go onto a Linkin Park music video on Youtube anymore without seeing some b*tch-fight about their new material. I, for one, liked "A Thousand Suns", but because the majority of the fanbase did not, Linkin Park sought out a a way to please their fans without compromising their freedom to make the music they choose to.
And so, here it is, the highly anticipated 2012 Linkin Park album, Living Things. Mike Shinoda, the band's frontman, wanted this album to be a perfect balance between heavy nu-metal sound of their older material and the experimental electro sound of their new material. Did he succeed in this perfect balance? We'll get to that in a moment.
The album kicks off with three electronic-based anthems. The first, Lost in the Echo starts off with a cool synth melody that leads into some of Mike's most energetic rapping. When the track hits the chorus, it absolutely soars. Chester's vocals are still as strong as ever, and he proves it here. The song contains a breakdown at the end of the second chorus, where Chester begins screaming. After this, there is a third verse by Mike before the final chorus. This leads into the slower, but no less heavy In My Remains. Here, there is no rapping; it's all singing. Chester sings in quieter verses before exploding in another massive chorus. After the second chorus, the song breaks down into a military piano beat while Mike Shinoda sings softly before the song builds back up to the heavy, yet uplifting nature it had before. Burn it Down, being the album's lead cashcow, is the the most radio-friendly song of the bunch, but it is quite a good song, featuring nice electonic melodies, and those catchy verses and chorus. These first three are among my favorites on the album.
The album hits a bit of a bump with Lies Greed Misery. After an indie-rockish intro, the song changes into a dubstep-like beat with some of Mike's worse rapping over it. The chorus is noisy and overproduced, and is sort of annoying, with Chester delivering his words of wisdom "I wanna see you choke on your lies, swallow up your greed, suffer all alone in your misery!" The song does redeem itself at the end with Chester screaming the final chorus instead of singing it, which definitely adds something different to the track. It's not a horrible song, but it doesn't stand up to the rest of the album, and most of Linkin Park's discography.
The next song, however, is my personal favorite on the album. I'll Be Gone is one of the more rock-based tracks on the album, with Brad Delson's guitar in a much more prominent position. It's refreshing to see that Linkin Park haven't forgotten to put the meat on their songs after the last for electro-based tracks. The first verse is soft, featuring soothing strings from Owen Pallett, but when the song reaches that breathtaking chorus, you know it's going to be an incredible song. This is among my top ten Linkin Park songs.
The second half of the album features the experimentation that Linkin Park can't seem to resist using on their tracks. Castle of Glass is a hypnotic, folk-infused track, that stands out as one of the best on the album. Victimized is a two-minute long headbanger that is perfect for listening if you need to destroy something. (Chester Bennington was sick when he was recording the screaming on this track, so kudos to him for pulling off some of the heaviest screams of his career while under such poor conditions.) Roads Untraveled is another rock-based song, similar to I'll Be Gone, which features piano, chimes, and Mike's calm voice in the verses before the beautiful wordless chorus. Skin to Bone is a dark, disorienting electo-folk track overloaded with crazy beats.
Until it Breaks may be one of the strangest songs the band has written. It starts off with Mike rapping slowly, but effectively. When he finishes his first verse, he raps another verse, this time over a reggae-like beat. After this second verse, the song shifts gears completely, with Chester singing softly over an orchestral build-up. Mike comes back on the third verse with another new beat; this one is considerable darker and more ominous than the ones before it. The last minute of the track is the biggest surprise of the album, with guitarist Brad Delson singing over an ambient outro; completely different from the rest of the track. Until it Breaks was constructed from four different demos, and it shows. The track lacks any real structure or coherence, yet somehow it works for me, and succeeds at being an enjoyable track. It will not work for everyone, but it can be agreed that this is the most experimental track Linkin Park has ever done, for better, or for worse.
The little instrunental, Tinfoil, leads into the closer, Powerless. As an instrumental, it can't stand on it's own, but it works very well as an intro to the closer. Powerless is the second of the two ballads (first being Roads Untraveled), and it is the better of the two in my opinion. Again, the song is heavily synth-centered. Powerless features soothing verses, a slow yet catchy chorus, a great build-up, a powerful ending, and, well, pretty much everything a good ballad needs.
Let's talk lyrics. The lyrics on this album are sort of a mixed bag. Lies Greed Misery's pissed out lyrics seem less like an attempt at creative writing, and more like a way to please their old fans who want to hear the band's more aggressive lyrics. Burn it Down certainly isn't something to write home about. Skin to Bone features lazy lyrics as well, including the cliche "Ash to ashes, dust to dust". Such a phrase can apply to itself as well.
Overall, the rest of the lyrics are pretty good. Futility is the central theme of the album with subjects such being unable to stop a friend from destroying himself in Powerless, to realizing that their are bigger things in the world out there than you in Castle of Glass, to working hard on something, only to realize that it's not meant to be. (Burn it Down). Roads Untraveled wins the lyrics award featuring my favorite line from the album "The love that you lost wasn't worth what it cost, and in time, you'll be glad it's gone". It always seems like Linkin Park save their best lyrics for their softer songs.
Now for some complaints. The biggest one is that the songs are too short. Most of them have unique ideas, and I think they should have been extended, so that they can have more to them. Victimized is less than two minutes long, and although it's good for what it is, it isn't enough. Skin to Bone and Lies Greed Misery also fly by so quickly, and I think both could have been more than just skeletons. (skeletons? skin to bone? get it? hahahahahha ok i'll shut up) In fact the only song that really seems to be fleshed out to its full potential is Burn it Down. No surprise, as it's the longest song on the album.
Another small gripe is the lack of Chester singing. While I like Mike's voice, I would rather have him do the rapping and Chester the singing. By the time Skin to Bone rolls around, I start missing Chester, because Mike did have lead vocals on the past three songs. When Powerless finally comes, it seems that Chester hasn't had a song to himself since I'll Be Gone. It's a small gripe, but worth mentioning.
So, back to the question I asked at the beginning of the review. Does this album succeed in the perfect balance between old and new? The answer:
No.
Well, does it matter? To me, the answer is no. The electronics do overcome the guitars much of the time, thus the mostly negative reception from critics. However, if you look over this fact and listen to the album knowing that this album was not meant to be Hybrid Theory Part 3, you will find some of the band's strongest material to date in here.
Top 5 Tracks:
Lost in the Echo
In My Remains
I'll Be Gone
Castle of Glass
Powerless
