Linkin Park: Living Things Review

Cool album cover, though?

Album: Living Things

Artist: Linkin Park

Genre: Nu-Metal

4.3/10

  

      Oh boy my first critical review.  It will be entitled “Linkin Park’s Fight to Stay Relevant”.  Linkin Park is an extremely popular group who were able to draw a huge following by combining pop hooking with hard rock distortion and short bursts of screaming, but it’s been almost 12 years since Hybrid Theory dropped, how can they attract new fans while keeping their old ones if they still want to sell out stadiums?  Well rapper Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin think that recording the same kind of songs they’ve always recorded but adding synths and electronics will do it, and they very well may be right.

     Living Things attempts to take Linkin Park in a new sonic direction, adding distorted synth lines on top of the already distorted power chords to hopefully bring an electronic aspect, but it’s (for the most part) a flop.  What could have been the best song on the album, “Victimized” is a key example.  The first half minute showcases a great drum sound and cool noise elements, but then out of nowhere electronic bass drum triggers surface alongside the drum track, while a synth plays a noodly line that completely clashes with the rap style of Shinoda.  It’s a complete clusterfuck of sound.  Most tracks sound like previous Linkin Park songs with a cheesy electronic bit thrown in.  In “Lost in the Echo” Shinoda actually uses the same tone and rhythm as his verses in Bleed It Out.  I see a band that wanted to change their sound but didn’t know how to do it.

      Then there are the lyrics.  Linkin Park lyrics express anger, frustration, fear, regret, but they never say at WHAT!  I have not seen the word “it” or “you” used so much in an album.  “You did it to yourself” Chester Bennington screams on Lies Greed Misery (which is actually the best song on the record).  But WHO did WHAT to themselves?  There’s no context.  He sings that something is “like an army falling one by one”.  What is?  His fear?  His happiness?  Shinoda’s lyrics are not as bad, but they’re still unimpressive.  Shinoda employs a very simple style with little subtly or use of poetic devices other than an AABB rhyme scheme.  There were a couple of cool ideas, however.  In the song “Castle of Glass” Shinoda compares himself to a crack in a castle of glass.  He cannot take down something that seems so easy to destroy.  On “Victimized” he says “I ain’t scared of your teeth/I admire what’s in ‘em”.  These are really the only impressive points however.

      Also choosing “Burn It Down” as the lead single was an awful idea.  That is easily the worst song on the album.  It sounds like a bad dance track with an incredibly shaky melody.  The lyrics are God-awful as well.  “We’re building it up/To break it back down/We’re building it up/To burn it down/We can’t wait/To burn it to the ground”.  These counter-intuitive lyrics are a perfect example of the lack of direction present in the entire album.

     So here’s the deal.  This is not a good album, it’s filler-tastic, but it contains all the elements most Linkin Park fans love, Chester’s screaming, Shinoda’s easy-to-understand rap, chugging power chords, and enough electronic sounds to impress someone who hasn’t heard any actual electronic music.  I think die-hard Linkin Park fans will find some redeeming qualities, but other people will not.  It’s getting 4.3 Things Alive out of 10.

FAVE TRACKS: Lies Greed Misery, Castle of Glass