Review: Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight [Rock]

After 4 years of abscence, Linkin Park returns to the music scene with their latest release Minutes to Midnight. This being a product of 18 months work and over 150 demos written, does this prove to be high quality music?

The album is based on a old and rather creepy concept; ``The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, created by scientists after the US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan'', Linkin Park co-frontman Chester Bennington explained. ``Given the idea that mankind now had this ultimate nuclear destructive power, they were contemplating what the repercussions of this would be and the idea that the end of the world could be imminent''.
The clock has been moved back and forth several times since its inception, and indicating right now at ``Minutes to Midnight''.

``With Minutes to Midnight Linkin Park says goodbye to their old ``nu-metal'' sound. The first single ``What I've Done'' was written after they decided on the Midnight concept, it's Linkin Park dropping the bomb on their rap-rock roots.

The album opens with ``Wake'', a slow intro.

Moving on to ``Given Up'' the song starts with clapping, soon accompanied by heavy guitar riffs and Bennington's raw vocals building up to the catchy chorus. This being a rather chaotic and screamy song, you first notice they've started using curse words. Formely against using those because it ruined the art of language.

The third song being a ballad: ``Leave out all the Rest'' is a rather generic song, done tons of times before, with a really catchy chorus that easily gets stuck in your head.

``Bleed it out'' underlines the new use of cursewords: ``Yea here we go for the hundredth time, Hand grenade pins in every line, Throw 'em up and let something shine. Going out of my fucking mind. Filthy mouth, no excuse. Find a new place to hang this noose''. This being one of the raps by Mike Shinoda, rarely heard on Minutes To Midnight. Once again the clapping kicks in and Bennington does the chorus. The song doesn't add much on the album, but is a nice song played live.


Another ballad ``Shadow of the Day'', starting with an annoying beat and instrumentally uninteresting, Bennington's voice seems to be the only good thing of the song at first. However, later on the rest of the instruments join in, including some strings, which brings this song to a very nice climax on the end, slowly turning into an outro and intro to the first single ''What I've Done''. This probably being one of the most interesting songs on the album, starting with the lyrics: ``In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi'', it's Linkin Park saying goodbye to their old image. The guitar and drums sounding raw and stripped down, it's a very good choice as first single.

More rapping from Mike Shinoda on ``Hands Held High''! Most likely to be influenced by Shinoda's side-project Fort Minor, the song features an organ and an choir repeatly singing ``amen'' after the verses and at the end of the song. This being a truly beautiful and mature song, it has to be one of my favourites of this album.

Next on Minutes to Midnight is ``No More Sorrow'', the instruments and build-up of the song sound much like ``Given Up'', which makes this song not very interesting.

``Valentine's Day'' is a song that's not much Linkin Park at all. Chester sounding very weak and fragile at the beginning of the song, only to regain his powerful voice at the end of the song singing the lyrics ``I never knew what it was like to be alone on a valentine's day''. These lyrics really disappointed me, not mature at all!

The next song ``In between'' is interesting for the fact that Mike Shinoda does the main singing. However this song didn't turn out so well as I hoped and is instrumentally again uninteresting.

``In Pieces'' starts off with a really annoying beat overruling Bennington's voice. This ruining like half of the song is such a shame. After the beat changes the song is alright, but after the annoyance of the first 1.5 minutes I can't really be bothered by this song.

The last song, and the longest song, is my personal favourite of this album. The song is based on their experiences visiting the `ruins' of New Orleans. ``The Little Things Give You Away'' is a slow song, perfectly built-up.

Overall this was well worth a 4-year wait. Though alot of Linkin Park fans might not like this new sound, it's definitely worth a listen.

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