Linkin Park-A Thousand Suns

I’m surprised that this album is on spirit of metal because this album isn’t metal!! With “Minutes to Midnight”, they switched from an astonishing Nu Metal sound to more of a heavy rock sound. And in my review of that album I said that their sound had drifted away from the Linkin Park sound. But this?? A Thousand Suns has drifted so far from it that their original sound is way beyond the horizon. Even Chester Bennington himself said that he doesn’t fully like A Thousand Suns. And I don’t blame him for thinking that! I have been checking up on Linkin Parks spirit of metal page and I’ve noticed that ever since they released their new single (which is one out of only three songs I’ve heard from the new album), the amount of fans have gone down at a dramatic pace. The thing that I just can’t understand is that there are people out there that actually like this album!

Let’s talk about their new sound. They still have a guitarist and a bassist, but I can’t hear any guitar or bass in the music, unless they have been digitized and edited so much that you can’t even tell that they even have a guitarist or bassist. Another thing I would like to say is that in the good old days (the Hybrid Theory and Meteora days), Chester Bennington sang and screamed, and Mike Shinoda did the rapping and occasionally sang to add some harmonies to Chester’s vocals here and there. But now, they both just sing. And I will tell you this, THEY AREN’T GOOD AT IT! I bet that in the studio recordings, they just use a drum machine, and when they play live, they use an actual drummer, because only techno bands would make the drums sound that automated and digital. Basically what I’m saying is that all I can hear is keyboard and vocals.

Another thing that I would like to note is that I hear quite a bit of auto-tune in the vocals. Auto-tune is typically used when a singer can’t hit the right notes when he’s singing. The thing that I don’t like about auto-tune is that there isn’t a smooth transition between notes. On top of Linkin Park switching to techno, the worst thing is that they aren’t any good at it. Unlike some of the better techno bands like Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, and Blaqk Audio, their songs are repetitive, boring, and have too much of a mainstream sound. In music, I am an extremely open minded person. I want bands to change their sound every once in a while. But if they’re changing, and not getting better (or if their getting worse), that’s something that I strongly dislike. I’m a techno fan and love listening to it, but this thing that Linkin Park has done is horrible. It’s more of a techno/pop sound, which is something I don’t like. As you can see, I’ve given this album 1/20 on spirit of metal, but if I could I would give it an infinite negative numbered score. I miss Linkin Park.