“A Thousand Suns” is no Linkin Park album
Linkin Park is dead. Yes, its dead and no “Catalyst” will bring it back.
It seems that Chester Bennington took his introspective style and kicked the crap out of the band that made “In the End” and “Numb.” There latest release, A Thousand Suns has continued on a stormier path than Minutes to Midnight. This path isn’t going to cut it for LP.
As much as Billboard is an authority on music rankings, I prefer to see where digital downloads are headed. Looking at iTunes, A Thousand Suns has minimal potential to be Meteora” let alone Hybrid Theory.
Linkin Park is a band that operates in a Yin-Yang style. For their first two albums (and various singles), they had a perfect mix of rap and rock that made the band truly Alternative. What “A Thousand Suns” has produced is an American variation of Coldplay (with a few Linkin Park-esque songs).
Just a few singles made me want to write this: namely “The Catalyst,” “Waiting for the End”. These two singles are filled with the dominating yin of Chester Bennington with little to no Mike Shinoda yang
Tracks like “When they Come for Me” have the sound of classic Linkin Park relative to other “Thousand Suns” tracks. With heavier guitar and the balanced influence of Shinoda, the moody and introspective sound of Linkin Park is suppressed.
As a very late disclaimer, I’ve been a fan of Linkin Park since they released Hybrid Theory. I’ve seen them experiment with tons of different things (For example Reanimation). I think that Linkin Park’s new direction is aimed at listeners who started at Minutes to Midnight. A Thousand Suns sales will determine whether the band’s “genre-busting” album is good for their continued success.
Grade: C- (70/100)
Comments
2 Responses to ““A Thousand Suns” is no Linkin Park album”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying...-
[...] WORST ALTERNATIVE ALBUM: A THOUSAND SUNS — LINKIN PARK. There’s a review explaining why one of the best alternative bands shat the bed. It’s here. [...]
I completely agree. I wouldn’t even give this album a C-, they really dropped the ball this time. About 5 of the 15 songs on the album are around 1 minute long, and the only songs that sound even remotely close to the great Linkin Park of old are “Wretches and Kings” and “The Catalyst. Even those two songs would be lesser songs on past Linkin Park albums. I was surprised when I heard the return of the sound of a guitar about halfway through the album, everything sounds like it was synthesized in the studio instead of actually playing some real instruments. Linkin Park has lost my trust with “A Thousand Suns.”