I don't know about you all, but I can't help but feel more-than-slight pangs of nostalgia every time Linkin Park crawl out from under their post-nu-metal rock with another album of forward-thinking, angst-ridden yet hook-filled aggro-pop music. It reminds me of high school… driving four friends to school in your car, hitting up the McDonald's drive-through for lunch, going to the movies every Friday night because, come on, where else were we going to go?
If you hadn't already, you probably heard the band's new single "Burn It Down" on last weekend's Billboard Music Awards. On the off-hand chance you didn't catch that either, its sleek, stylish performance video debuted on MTV last night. Check it out below.
Their new album Living Things (out June 26) is, from the look and sound of things, their bold attempt to reconnect with longtime (and casual) fans after the experimental, political-leaning A Thousand Suns… an album that I've really grown to love. Kanye Shrug. Frontman Chester Bennington made it sound like Linkin Park were going to pick up the nu-metal, radio-friendly (well, radio-friendly in 2003… good luck with it now) sound again, though both "Burn It Down" and "Lies Greed Misery" (another new cut that leaked earlier today) don't feel all that different from that album's electro-crunch aesthetic, albeit with more focused hooks and (mostly) hummable melodies.
Give the latter song a spin right here.
Not crazy about either song, per se, but I love the production work—the robotic, militaristic groove of "Burn It Down" and the sputtering electro-core hiss of "Lies Greed Misery." Hey, the latter even has a good old-fashioned Bennington scream! Maybe Linkin Park really has found a way to go back to their (bankable) roots without ditching the interesting sonic flourishes of A Thousand Suns. I guess we'll find out next month.
What do you guys think of the new Linkin Park song(s)? Leave some teeth marks on our comments section below.
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Chris from CHARE :
I love Burn It Down, not sure how I feel about Lies Greed Misery yet. Both sound like a more focused version of ATS. That was my biggest issue with that album - I loved the sound, the song structures were really lacking though. To me, you can't do both at the same time. Either go for an experimental sound OR experimental song structures. Doing both at the same time is too much for people to adapt to.
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