Linkin Park, “Living Things”

Linkin Park’s latest album is an attempt at experimenting with its sound without straying too far from its roots. The usual elements of hard rock, rap and metal are all present, but the band has added elements of dance and electro-pop.

Jason Mack

The result is a slightly underwhelming album that never truly shines but is consistently decent throughout. Nothing on this album comes close to the level of classics like “Numb” and “Crawling.” The closest it has to offer is the single “Burn It Down.” It features the standard combination of Chester Bennington’s alternative rock crooning supplemented by Mike Shinoda’s rapping. People have drawn political meaning from the song with a chorus saying, “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.” However, lyrics such as “You told me yes, you held me high, and I believed when you told that lie” hint toward it being a song about a failed relationship.

Shinoda takes the lead on the up-tempo “Lies Greed Misery” with Bennington breaking out his high-pitched scream throughout the song. The track is short but effective. It takes me back to high school days of blaring Linkin Park in the locker room to get pumped up before football games. Maybe if we had this song we could have won more than three games. Not likely, but it’s a nice thought.

Linkin Park normally excels with ballads such as “The Little Things Give You Away” and my favorite, “My December.” “Roads Untraveled” had the potential to follow in those footsteps, but it is completely derailed by a shrill xylophone in the background providing a nails-on-chalkboard effect. The song isn’t helped by weak and cliche lyrics such as “Weep not for roads untraveled. Weep not for sights unseen. May your love never end, and if you need a friend, there’s a seat here alongside me.” Still, if it weren’t for the xylophone, I would enjoy the track.

Linkin Park proved with “Living Things” they are capable of producing an electronic sound. They also proved they’re better off sticking with their bread and butter of rap rock.

**1/2 out of 5

Tags: "Living Things", CD review, Chester Bennington, Jason Mack, Linkin Park, Mike Shinoda

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 8:55 am and is filed under Arts and Life, CD Reviews, Music.
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