Linkin Park goes as far as it can from its initial sound

It is no secret that many interesting performers and bands have appeared on the turn of the century to break a number of rules and refuse to recognize stylistic frames which lead to a greater variety in music directions. Yet, not all of that newcomers army have survived – some only made it to one album, others to two but some have really found themselves and occupied a special niche quite confidently. Thus, in its own time Linkin Park became one of the rap-core founders and today it is the true law maker of the relatively new genre. Realizing two twin albums the musicians recorded A Minute To Midnight, on which it was classic rock that prevailed though the band’s best traits were preserved including Mike Shinoda’s trademark rapping. Despite that not all the fans have appreciated such a turning Linkin Park members are sure that it is not worth while doing the same things all the time. To make sure we do not doubt their confidence the band finally releases its fourth album A Thousand Suns this year and goes as far as it can from its initial sound on it transforming it beyond recognition.

A Thousand Suns, a three dimension album

Linkin Park’s main goal was to create a three-dimensional album and it has definitely been reached. The tracks’ movement on A Thousand Suns is based on the principle 'from simple to complex’, from light to heavy and then there is the final fool stop at the end. Not all of them, however, are full-length songs in their structure, almost a half are a kind of interludes adding to the entire picture. Thus the album opens with a song featuring female vocals, The Requiem, built around volume noises and samples, and a man’s voice is creating rather sullen images against a worrisome heart beating on a one minute long track The Radiance. The vocalists’ singing appears only on the least unusual number Burning In The Skies with nice guitars, keyboards chords and a memorable tune. Only 18 seconds of voices, announcements and shots on Empty Spaces are followed by When They Come For Me, a danceable composition in fact, with an non-printable vocabulary, a very contagious beat and hip-hop samples – Linkin Park’s complete metamorphosis. The piano, one of the band’s favorite instruments refines a melodious ballad Robot Boy, once again conquering with a faultless beat, whereas a vulnerable track Waiting For The End gets the closest to pop music but Shinoda’s rapping prevents the listener from emerging into the sentiments. The band has written the song Wrectches And Kings inspired by Public Enemy, and it is really a powerful hip-hop composition heavy on drums and guitars. The entire action gets its climax on the single The Catalyst, which does credit to Linkin Park as authors of both heavy and soulful music and the finale, an emotional ballad The Messenger, confirms it.

The most integral and complete work

If Rick Rubin did his best to make the musicians put all of their energy into each song without wasting any single minute in the studio, their collaboration on the new album has once again justified itself. The songs on A Thousand Suns are not only completely new ideas expressed both in the tiniest nuances and in obvious things such as for instance politicians’ speech pieces and unusual percussion. Each track is the continuation and multiplication of the previous one which makes it all the most integral and complete work in Linkin Park’s discography. The album could be released earlier but Chester Bennington has recently created a side-project Dead By Sunshine, and Linkin Park has decided to give him the opportunity to release the debut work first – the album Out Of Ashes was released last October. Thus one of the most original bands of our time Linkin Park keeps experimenting and widening the limits of its impressive capacities and its fans are only left to widen the limits of their music tastes.

Alexandra Zachernovskaya
15.09.2010