Review Summary: A “going back to roots” album that reminded the world that “Yes”, Linkin Park is still around and can still put out a strong, somewhat relevant album that avoided the snare drum.
As the 2000s have moved on, Nu Metal has gained an increasingly bad reputation in and out of the world of metal. Too mainstream and not extreme enough if you listen to trve cvlt metal or too hard and aggressive if you are someone who doesn’t listen metal. A Line in the Sand has been drawn and neither side wants anything to do with that line. To say you are a Nu Metal fan in the presence of a metal elitist is a sure fire way for them to alienate you and saying you are a hardcore Limp Bizkit fan will only draw laughter from anyone outside of the early 2000s, though it is still better than being an Atilla fan.
And this is what the Nu Metal superstars Linkin Park seemed to be facing. Their DIAMOND first album Hybrid Theory shot them towards the front of the Nu Metal pack and the release of Meteora gave a nice follow-up, even if it didn’t reach the peaks of their earlier release. Then to keep their sound “fresh”, Minutes to Midnight came around polarizing the fan base. Personally, I like the majority of it, Bleed It Out and What I’ve Done are some of my favorite LP songs ever. Then came A Thousand Suns, I don’t talk about that album and I won’t here anymore. Living Things gave some hope of LP’s return until it got a bit overbearing in the second half. It was a release from the eclipse of the album that shall not be mentioned, however brief. And thus we arrive at The Hunting Party.
LP was on the verge of losing all hope of relevance in the modern day music scene until something amazing happened: Guilty All the Same was on the radio. Was this a pop station, not by any stretch, but it showed that Linkin Park finally realized what they were good at, mainstream metal. Yep, that is how LP gained their success, they were played on the radio and they were clean. Parents let their kids buy the album and they became huge off the radio. LP has hit the radio again and I was notified of a new LP album. I was excited, I had recently started exploring the “heavier” side of music (AKA peak Green Day, FOB, and LP) and now one of my favorite bands was releasing a new album and the first single was great - at this point I hadn’t even heard the studio release with the intro or Rakim - and it showed promise. A return to their roots album that did not have the words “Saint” or “Anger” in it at all and a lack of the aforementioned snare drum.
Throughout the rest of the year, I impatiently waited for each subsequent single to build up my excitement, finding no big problem with any of them. I did, however, wish that they were a bit heavier. As it turned out, they were among the softest songs on the album, but I will get to that later. When the album finally came out over the summer, I knew I would do anything to listen to it, and at that time I did not have Spotify so I did the only thing I could, went to Youtube. As soon as I heard Keys to the Kingdom I was hooked. It was heavy, by LP standards, and proved to be a great opener. Then came All For Nothing, which is one of my absolute favorites in the whole LP discography. Shinoda decides it is now a good time to rap again, Bennington hits the screams perfectly, and Page Hamilton is great on this track. It all comes together in a great song that is the highlight on this album, without a doubt.
The Summoning is the obligatory LP instrumental track that builds up to, ironically, my least favorite song on the album, the filler known as War. Is it exactly bad, no, not really, but it feels like LP is just reusing all their cliches again in the form of a political song. Except this time their cliches became somewhat “punky”. Riffing power chords, pseudo screamed vocals and a noticeable lack of Shinoda. Speaking of which, the use of Shinoda’s verse is quite lacking in quantity on this album. When it’s there, it is quite solid, but just not common enough. The best outside of All for Nothing, Shinoda’s best verses come from Wastelands, which provides a great verse along with Bennington, once again, nailing his vocals on point and is an exemplar of LP still being able to produce great songs.
The ending of the album leaves very little to be desired. They turn back their “heaviness” into more melodic songs. Final Masquerade, while somewhat cheesy, is a great song that I personally can listen to for days. The album closes with one of the longest songs in LP’s repertoire, A Line in the Sand. Ending with a slightly more progressive sound than most of the album, LP replaces angry vocals with nice hooks and an enjoyable instrumental, concluding an enjoyable comeback from the band and offering an open door for the future.
Stand Outs:
Keys to the Kingdom
All for Nothing
Wastelands
