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?

Food for thought......

So as you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting a hell of a lot over the past 6 months, reasons for this ranging from the silly to the serious, I wont delve into to many details of my personal life, because 1. I don’t want my life splashed all over the internet and 2. Because you clearly won’t be interested.

 All I wanted to tell you was that, I will be back very soon, I am trying to get some of my creativity back, I am slowly recovering from what the last 6 months has brought me. No, I haven’t been ill and no Im not dying, I just made decisions in my life that changed my perspective and what I should do with life, writing is definitely something I have missed. Something that I will definitely carry on doing in the near future.

In other words, I am basically apologising for my absence and telling you the reader (if there are any of you out there) that I will be starting to post very soon.

Im sure your probably thinking to yourself, why did he write all that rubbish at the top, well the answer is, I need to VENT! So thanks for listening

Speak Soon!

Cabin In The Woods

Cabin in the Woods

Cabin In The Woods Poster

So, here I am again, I haven’t written in quite some time, as you have seen, with about 0 posts to my name in the last 3 months, I have been contemplating a come back for quite some time and this film without doubt is certainly worth wiping the dust off of my keyboard to start writing again.

There were a lot of perceived ideas “out there” about this film and what it is/was about? Let me set something straight first don’t read anything about this film before you go and see it, and I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, “well why are you writing a review on it if you don’t want us to read anything about it?”, well for one reason really! Its that damn good!

So I am going to do you a favour:

If you want to read on, then highlight the following text, if you don’t and you want to wait for the film to come out on DVD or go to the cinema to see it, come back when I have posted some more reviews!

Cabin In The Wood’s is literally (I cant think of any better way to put it) saying “F*CK YOU” to horror, “This is how its going to be from now on, if you don’t like go somewhere else, if you do like it then watch me”. It has literally everything in this film, Im not going to elaborate completely on this but every monster you have ever dreamt of, from “maniac clowns” to “zombies” .

It starts with 2 men at work talking about what is happening in the world and betting on certain things in last years “event” and so the beginning credits start rolling. It then moves on to a group of high school teenagers that are getting ready to go on a road trip to one of the characters cousins’ holiday home. One of the best things about this film is that it has all the stereotypes, The Jock, The Blonde, The Intelligent Male and Female that fall for each other and finally the Stoner, but always remember its purposely done this way.

So the film flicks between the 2 men and these group of teenagers for all of the film as you will quickly see they are entwined in the same story because what your about to watch is the teenagers get brutally killed by zombies who are controlled by the 2 men, but as it unfolds you start to realise they are all part of a greater plan, as this isn’t the only event that has happened like this and it isn’t the only place either.

Regardless if you have read on or not I don’t want to completely ruin the story for you and I will not delve into the ending of the story, because there is twist after twist. One of the many things I love about this film is the 2 men are called “the directors” and as soon as they are out of their seats you don’t know which way the films is going to go, because there is no direction coming from the people that caused the killings to have direction, so metaphorically there is no one controlling the outcome. Maybe Im thinking to deep, but Im some people will understand what Im “getting at” when you watch the film.

The acting is very good, not to be taken too seriously, as the film doesn’t take itself too seriously. Mr Hemsworth proves himself to be a diverse actor and a definite one to watch for the future.

The action is very good, typical teen-slasher until the end when it turns into a complete and utter blood fest, something for the real horror or gore fans.

Overall, it’s a “game-changer” as I have heard some people describe it, that is the best way to describe and you will probably come away from the cinema thinking to yourself or saying to yourself “WTF! Just happened”.

Killer Elite

Killer Elite Poster

I saw a couple of previews for this while going to the c cinema last year, and for some peculiar reason I never got round to seeing it unfortunately, I absolutely love Jason Statham, he typifies what it means to be a British hard nut. Robert De Niro is also in this film, what is there to say about him, the name is just enough. Dominic Purcell (Blade: Trinity, Prison Break) is also in there playing another tough guy Englishman. Rounding off the excellent English cast is Clive Owen who is also fit for the part in this film.

What’s it all about I hear you say? Well,  it starts with the 3 main characters “Danny” (Statham), “Hunter” (De Niro)  and “Davies” (Purcell) on a mission to assassinate a government official, when things go badly wrong for “Danny” as he kills the official, a child is also in the car, and subsequently for his hesitant stance, he is shot by a police officer, “Hunter” then manages to retrieve “Danny” and then they drive off and “Danny” telling the other two that “he wants out”.

And so the movie starts from a year on. “Danny” is out of the “game”. This is when he receives a letter saying that “Hunter” has been captured by a sheikh and he wants “Danny” to help him with a situation, thus letting “Hunter” go on completetion. “Danny” along with “Davies” is then told to kill 3 men who were responsible for killing the Sheikh’s 3 sons (with 1 remaining). What “Danny” and “Davies” don’t realise is that they must get past one hell of a man on a mission in Clive Owen’s character “Spike” who is defending his fellow SAS. This is the basic story and like my other reviews I don’t really wan t to give too much away without you seeing it.

The film is set in the 80’s and is interestingly based on a true story, which allows the audience supposedly see the lives of killers in the 80’s. so it is a very original take on this type of film, if you get what Im saying without being too confusing.

The acting is of a good standard, typical De Niro and typical Statham, make this a good film, some parts of the film are action orientated and others are slightly slow but add to the depth of the story which is nice for this genre.

Overall the film is a good one and is good at what it does, but nothing more and nothing less.

Get Watching!

Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

Peter James - Dead Man's Grip Cover

After giving up on “Stephen King’s The Stand” (500 pages out of 1500) realising that it was just pages of nonsense and pure detail, I decided to go for something a lot simpler, and the next book that I was given to read was this one.

The story is mainly about a woman named Carly, her son Tyler, and Roy Grace a Police officer just wanting his pregnant fiancée to have their baby and him solving the case of 2 brutal murders in Brighton. There are a number of peripheral characters, such as Ricky Giordino, Fernanda Revere, Tony Revere (Crime Family). However the main story is about Carly and 2 other drivers causing the death of a young student, Tony Revere, by knocking him off his bike. What they do not realise is that he was born into a massive crime family similar to the mafia in New York. They hire a Hitman to take out the people involved, its Roy and his team’s job to stop him from succeeding. When Carly realises what happens how far would you go to protect your only son?

(I have literally just looked at the book and realised that this is the seventh in the series, I feel slightly gutted knowing that this is a series, the one thing I can say is that you can just pick it up and read it. From what I have read I don’t think you need to read the other books in the series to catch on.)

So after my recent realisation, it only furthers my current thoughts on this book positively. It is an excellent thriller. Peter James certainly does well in explaining each scene to the best of his ability, and it certainly isn’t over the top like Stephen King.

Overall an excellent book and it just makes me want to read the others now. Get Reading!!