Linkin Park - Living Things

Linkin Park - Living Things

What seems like an age since “A Thousand Suns”, finally Linkin Park have released their much awaited fifth studio album which is once again produced by the brilliant Rick Rubin and the band’s very own lyrical genius that is Mike Shinoda.

I have been alongside Linkin Park since the very first days, when they created Hybrid Theory way back in 2000, when I was only 10 (WOW that seems a lifetime ago). I have enjoyed every single one of their albums, all in different ways, because they all contribute to music in different ways, this album is absolutely no different from the rest of them, it contributes...........a lot.

This morning I woke up to a complete an utter surprise, with their album being posted through my letter box 3 days earlier than it was supposed to be released, I suppose I have HMV to thank for that. It didn’t take me too long to put it in to my CD player to see what they had created, over the past couple of weeks they have given a good account of what was to come with the early releases of “Burn It Down” and “Lies, Greed, Misery” (on Radio 1 and the new Medal of Honor trailer), both of these songs are brilliant, and gave a good account of the bands diversity, but as the old saying goes, leave the best till last and in this case they left all the talking to do with the actual album.

The name of the tracks are quite different from the other albums, denoting a certain fragility that the other albums haven’t, songs names like “Castle of Glass”, “Powerless”, “Victimized”, “Lost In The Echo” and “Tinfoil”, certainly far away from the likes of “Papercut”, “Crawling”, “Easier to Run”, “Bleed it Out”, “The Catalyst” and “Burning in the Skies” (respectively from “Hybrid Theory”, “Meteora”, “Minutes to Midnight” and “A Thousand Suns”.)

So the album opens up with “Lost In The Echo” which is by far my most favourite song of this album (apart from “Victimized”) and what you will first realise is that Mike Shinoda is heavily involved in this song, with Chester Bennington just singing the chorus, Shinoda proves once again that he has some awesome lyrics in his arsenal (“Ya’ll go hard I’ll go smart”), and it certainly helps Chester out with the rest of the song, it gives it a real flow, which is why I really like this song, it also brings back Chester’s incredibly strong “screamy” voice, which I have personally missed on the last couple of albums.

Next up is “In My Remains”, this shows Chester’s impressive vocal range , getting half way through this song makes you realise that Linkin Park have done it again and they have created another excellent album, throughout this song Chester shows his soulful side with some beautiful vocals.

“Burn It Down” is the next song on the list and I am sure a lot of people have already heard this song, due to getting quite a bit of air play on various radio stations, this is a brilliant song and definitely shows fusion between their older and newer material, with heavy synths involved through, I am sure this is going to be a hit with a wider audience.

"Choke on your lies, swallow up your greed, Suffer all alone in your misery"

Like “Burn It Down”, “Lies, Greed, Misery” also shows the fusion. Mike once again takes the reins on this song with Chester singing the chorus and the end. I personally think that this is going to have a lot of people singing along to it, the lyrics are very catchy, very fast and, yes I’m going to say it, very furious. Without doubt one of the best songs they have created in recent years.

“I’ll Be Gone”, shows yet again that Chester has an extremely large vocal range and continues to be one of the best in the business for a rock and soulful voice, some great lyrics.

“Castle of Glass”, combines both Chester and Mike’s voice which suit each other’s very well, like I said earlier you certainly get the idea of fragility from this song, very powerful and very good lyrics,  by now I’m thinking that this could be my favourite album of the year maybe even of Linkin Park’s.

"Time has come for you............VICTIMIZED"

Up next is “Victimized”, and after listening to this song it certainly makes you feel like a victim, simply because Chester just uses his voice to barrage your ears with anger and awesomeness, the only let down on this album so far, at just 1min 47secs long it is rather short, but what it doesn’t do in time it certainly gets the point across which is why this is also one of my favourite songs on the album, it certainly shows that Chester is still as good as he used to be. Brutal.

From “Victimized” you are effortlessly glided into “Roads Untraveled” which is a very nice song with Mike singing the majority of the song. Very calm and collected quite the opposite of “Victimized” but it helps to keep the equilibrium of the album, part "screamy", part melodic.

"Ash to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Skin to Bone and Steel to Rust"

“Skin to Bone”, is lyrically very simple, with the same lyrics said over again, my least favourite song but still very catchy and a very good song, sets the album up for the finale with 3 songs to go.

 

“Until It Breaks”, mostly shows Mikes ability to rap very well, lyrics that could easily be used in a rap battle, extremely good song with a good beat, also one of my favourites as it shows the whole band singing together (saw the making of the album and saw them sing together), something maybe they should think about doing more as it adds a very nice touch to the album, however like they always say “too much of a good thing is bad for you”.

Linkin Park is one of those bands that enjoys embracing the whole bands talents not just their singing ability which I really applaud, the second to last song “Tinfoil” shows Joe Hahn’s ability to create his own canvas with his own song which is shown in his previous works such as “Session” which was released in “Meteora”, so this sets it up very nicely for the finale.

“Powerless” is the finale song on Living Things and is very good ending to what is a brilliant accomplishment for the band, very slow, and extremely powerful (excuse the wording considering the song name), brilliant lyrics and beautiful voices.

And there we have it, 2 years of waiting is over, was it worth wait.................Hell Yeah! This album is awesome to say the least, I have already listened to it 3 times through and I have had it 9 hours. Brilliant addition to their stupidly good discography, the thing I would change would be the length of the songs, however they wouldn’t be the correct songs if they were longer, so in another words I wouldn’t change anything, some people may complain at the fact there isn’t an awful lot of screaming or metal, however they are going to have to accept this as Linkin Park.

Chester, Mike, Rob, Brad, Dave , Joe you have yet again created a brilliant album, Well Done, I already I cannot wait for your next album, and I am definitely looking forward to the remixed version of this album.

One question I do want to ask, do you think Linkin Park could successfully do a dubstep album?