Review Summary: A great buy for fans of mainstream rock, although it brings very little new to the table, is still a worthwhile listen for those who haven't yet outgrown Nu Metal.
Meteora is the kind of album that gets a lot of people who look at its negative points, and few people even trying to find positives. Fair enough, it's easy to attack it- While not necessarily a carbon copy of
Hybrid Theory, the songs stick almost without exception to the typical LP formula (Those of you who don't know it need to get away from the rock you've been living under for the last 7 years) and can easily be connected with at least 1 song off of
Hybrid Theory (
Somewhere I Belong is literally
In The End with a clean guitar riff rather than a piano riff). It has the 'instrumental' where Joe Hahn shows off his DJ skills, the short-notice ending of the final tracks (although the end of
Numb is much less satisfying than that of
Pushing Me Away) and angst-filled lyrics from both the rapping and screaming/singing.
For this review, I'll spend most of the time on the various instruments. Linkin Park isn't exactly the most technically complex band on the planet, but a band isn't a band if nobody even does anything. In fact, the music on this album can be quite interesting at times. The guitar certainly does it's job, even playing riffs this time rather than relying on purely root note power chords.
Don't Stay has the guitar playing a power chord riff as the main instrumental melody, rather than just backing or playing a few clean notes over the top of the electronic drums. In many songs it does revert to just playing root note power chords, which is fairly dull, but when it does a bit more, it really shows (
Don't Stay,
Breaking The Habit,
Lying From You). The guitar gives
Meteora a sound that is almost muddy at times, and is often mixed low during verses or intros, which allows the vocals to really stand out.
On that note, let's move on to the vocals. These are clearly the focus of the band, with the rapping and singing/screaming playing back and forth, complementing each other much like they did in
Hybrid Theory. Chester's voice was clearly the weaker of the two voices on
Hybrid Theory, with his vocals sounding whiny and predictable, even if his lyrics steered away from cliche for the most part. However,
Meteora is quite possibly his best vocal showing to date- The whiny edge has been mostly taken out, and the screaming no longer sounds like a 3 year-old with a powerful voice.
Numb sums this change up, with near flawless clean vocals in the verses, and the screaming is not taken over the top, even in the bridge where he lets his emotions go, rather than his vocal chords. His lyrics are, at times, surprisingly good. Like the guitar, they simply do their job for the most part, but
Breaking The Habit shows a very sophisticated attempt at songwriting:
"Memories consume
Like opening the wound
I'm picking me apart again
You all assume
I'm safe here in my room
Unless I try to start again"
Unlike the Jonathan Davis (of Korn, for those who don't know, which is very few people I'm guessing) approach of simply saying 'Why are you doing this? Stop it, I hate you, I hate you' or something to that effect, Chester writes more complex lyrics, and although it's clear what they are about, he manages to make it much more interesting to listen to than Davis ever does.
The same could be said for Shinoda in parts- His lyrics are perfectly respectable for Nu Metal rapping, and while they may be at times less subtle than Chester certainly do their job. However, on
Meteora, his lyrics do feel tired, as does his delivery, resulting in Chester feeling like much more of a leader, rather than almost part of the backing band. Shinoda knows his faults, and takes up the keyboard much more than he did before, but he isn't a bad rapper. For the first time since the
Hybrid Theory EP, he talks about his own lyrics, on
Nobody's Listening. This does often feel a lot like your average rapper putting himself up, but the moments when it works are worth sitting through the rest of the song for:
"Rewind that we're just rolling with the rhythm
Rise from the ashes of stylistic division
With these non-stop lyrics of life living
Not to be forgotten but still unforgiven
But in the meantime there are those who wanna talk this and that
So I suppose that it gets to a point where feelings gotta get hurt
And get dirty with the people spreading the dirt"
The whole quote sums up Shinoda's rapping in the album- Average in general, but with some clear highlights. He is a much better rapper than Fred Durst, at any rate. Rob Bourdon's drumming is near-perfect, really. He's a pretty good drummer, and knows when to show it as well as when to stay out of it. He may not be spectacular, but the beats are varied enough, and fit with the rest of the band so well that he can cover up the lack of mind blowing fills. No real drumming highlights are present in the album, but as I said, they don't need to be, as the beats just give the whole album that little bit extra and do everything they need to, without exception. The bass isn't even worth mentioning, although it must be noted that it plays transition notes in the pre-chorus of
Numb as well as the root notes, something which I never remember hearing before. With a band like Linkin Park, this is disappointing, as a good bass could do a world of good if it suited the rapping- Maybe try to get a proper hip-hop bass sound.
The sampling is also an interesting listen. Some of the samples appear to be close to experimental, with the Japanese flute of
Nobody's Listening being the most obvious example, the effected backwards acoustic guitar intro of
Somewhere I Belong, the pitch bending samples of
Lying From You and the 3/4 synth sample of
From The Inside also being worth mentioning.
Well, does this sound like a bad album so far?
Breaking The Habit is a really good song, with no distortion yet it doesn't sound like a ballad. The tempo is actually quite fast, and the whole song is something really different for Linkin Park.
From The Inside has a very interesting combination of singing and rapping, even if Mike Shinoda's delivery is weak.
Numb is a song which you can listen to again and again and again, a real highlight of
Meteora, and indeed LP's whole career. So where does the criticism come from?
I think it's safe to say that if
Hybrid Theory had never been released, this album would have been received with much more enthusiasm. As it stands, the Linkin Park formula has hardly changed, although the transitions between songs are new, as are the slight hints of experimentation. The rapping and singing goes back and forth like it did before, the lyrics are almost all about teenage angst-related problems, and no real new ground is covered on the album. It feels very samey in parts, though less so than
Hybrid Theory, and several songs fall culprit to being nearly exactly the same with different lyrics.
Hit The Floor and
Figure .09 could be played back to back, and you would barely notice the difference. Only the samples keep
Lying From You from falling into the same trap.
Faint has a certain something which makes me want to include it with them (the samples and distortion, probably, but that would then allow me to group nearly every song on the album into one song) but, on it's own, you could easily include it in the
Hybrid Theory album.
Faint is nearly an album highlight, but is just so clearly typical Linkin Park that I can't quite bring myself to say it.
So, does this album really sound that bad? It's a good listen, especially for teenagers, even if you do outgrow it as an adult, and has some great songs in
Numb and
Breaking The Habit. If you like Linkin Park, I can't see why you wouldn't like this, and for anyone who wants something a bit heavier than your usual mainstream rock, this is a good place to start. Not a necessary album to release for Linkin Park, but a good one nonetheless.
