It has been four years since Linkin Park's last full-length album, the smash-hit Meteora, which saw the infamous rap-rock outfit comfortably following the same winning formula that launched them into superstardom on their 2000 release Hybrid Theory. The band's success gained them a huge following of dedicated fans, but also resulted in a fair amount of criticism from skeptics, who said all their songs sound exactly the same. Minutes to Midnight is Linkin Park's attempt to answer their critics.

The band declares that the album took fourteen months to finish and produced no less than one hundred song ideas, twelve of which made the final cut. A series of cliches like pushing the boundaries and soul-searching describes the recording process. The band’s third album tries to forge a new identity and quiet the critics who say Linkin Park’s music is formulaic and generic.

What emerges from the laborious recording sessions is Minutes to Midnight, an album that sounds nothing like what Linkin Park has done before. Linkin Park’s previous two albums, while hardly groundbreaking, were still above average rap-rock outings that had just enough snappy guitar hooks and energetic vocal performances to earn a passing recommendation. On Minutes to Midnight, the band takes a stab at something quite different and misses the mark completely. Mike Shinoda’s rapping is almost entirely absent. The pumping, kinetic riffs and stomping keyboard rhythms feel muted and passionless. Taken as a whole, Minutes to Midnight is an unqualified disaster.

With over one-hundred song ideas, it’s disappointing that the band opted to kick off their third album with yet another pointless intro track, entitled Wake. What could have been a fine beginning to a song is instead wasted as the 1:41 track comes and goes without leaving any lasting impression. Given Up uses a slithering bass to set up an aggressive chorus packed with Chester Bennington’s raspy screams. This thoroughly unpleasant approach is made worse by the band’s newfound sense of maturity in the form of profanity, which was taboo on both of LP’s previous albums.

Bennington takes the lead on the vocals elsewhere, with less than stellar results. The stench of radio-friendliness is all over Leave Out All The Rest. The formula is obvious: quiet, pensive verses and a rising chorus filled with poppy sentiment. This blase concoction is more befitting of Hoobastank than Linkin Park. The power-ballad Shadow of the Day is similarly hollow and uninspired, and slugging through its nearly five-minute run time is an exercise in futility. In Pieces treads much the same territory, with a host of tired lyrics (“You will be alone/ Alone with all your secrets/ Your regrets/ Don’t lie”) and instrumentation that is anything but punchy.

There are some bright spots in this generally cloudy sky. The first single, What I’ve Done, is vintage Linkin Park, with a soft keyboard intro and a big, catchy chorus. It’s too bad the band chose to send this song out to radio, because it couldn’t be more different from the rest of the album. It harkens back to what made LP so popular in the first place, and most listeners are likely to ask: why couldn’t the band have followed this path? Sure it’s identical to what they’ve done in the past, but so what? At least it’s worth listening to. Equally compelling is Valentine’s Day, which builds from a plaintive, tranquil start to a pounding finale with soaring vocals and a driving pace.

At this point, one has to wonder: where is Mike Shinoda? He only appears on a handful of songs, which is surprising since he was such an integral part of the band’s previous albums. Shinoda and Bennington team up for all of one song, the snappy Bleed It Out. Shinoda lends some much needed energy to the proceedings and Bennington follows his lead with more throaty wails. Shinoda again takes charge on Hands Held High, another odd experiment with a steady drum beat and choral backing vocals. It’s one thing to branch out, but songs like this one seem like such a drastic departure from the band’s past that it leaves the listener confused and disorientated. It’s the same band members, but what’s coming out of the speakers sounds totally unfamiliar.

Minutes to Midnight finds Linkin Park caught at a crossroads. On one hand, they want to try new things and diversify their sound. On the other hand, they have to remain faithful to their roots. It’s safe to say that the experiments can generally be summed up as a series of failures with none of the passion or energy that propelled the band’s earlier songs. Long time fans will surely feel deceived and frustrated by Linkin Park’s new direction. Ultimately, Minutes to Midnight sees Linkin Park make a dramatic and ill-advised U-turn with their music, leading in a direction that most fans need not bother following.

Recommended: No