"Dude... what happened to Linkin Park?" That's probably the question that a lot of former fans of this rap/rock juggernaut band are asking right now. But it's not a question that I'm asking - and audacious as it sounds, it's because I think I know the answer.

I mean, I'm not in these guys' heads or anything. But just look at their history and do the math for yourself. They spent a good four years riding high on the rapidly declining trend of rap/rock and nu-metal - they may have shrugged off some of the tags people gave them, but their sound was catchy and trendy - perhaps a little more polished and user-friendly than a lot of similar bands due to the use of electronic effects and dual vocalists that enabled them to overlay Mike Shinoda's rapping and the screaming/screeching of Chester Bennington, or swap back and forth between the two in interesting ways. Sure, we had heard it all before, but never quite distilled into such a nice and neat little capsule. There were plenty of rabid critics who disliked them, and I thought some of the criticisms were fair, mostly concerning their lyrics being a bit amateurish and their second album largely reusing elements from their first. And there were those who derided them simply because they weren't the first ones to arrive at their trendy sound. That's where the typical critical mindset and I parted ways, because I really couldn't care less how currently trendy a band's sound is as long as they like the style of music that they're making, they do it well, and they leave some room for scribbling in the margins and going beyond the expected trappings of the genre, even if it's just a little bit. Linkin Park did enough to satisfy me in all areas, except perhaps the lyric thing. But that was mostly forgivable.

Anyway, onto what changed between then and now. It's been four years since the band's last full length album, and as many bands do when faced with the traditionally difficult third album, they chose to reinvent themselves, going with a much less processed, more direct and "in-your-face" sound on several tracks, showing their sensitive side on an unusually high number of mellower songs, and scaling the rap/hip-hop aspects of their music waaaaaaayyyyy back. Oh, and did I mention they swear now, too? Yeah, the once family-friendly rap/rock band is no longer. Not that their often depressing lyrics were all that pleasant to begin with, but you know, they also weren't really offensive to anybody. What's going on here, on this new album, is that Linkin Park is trying way too hard to respond to any and every criticism that they could find of their old material.

Now I'm not against a band retooling their sound - anyone has to do that in order to stay fresh and help fans to feel like they're not just purchasing the same songs over and over. (Though Linkin Park has given us plenty of chances to do that as well, and I can't say the results have always been bad.) What bugs me is when a band lets the criticism get to them to the point where they're self-conscious and no longer want to resemble the sound that made them interesting in the first place. You can listen to criticism, particularly of the constructive variety, but I think too many recording artists throw out the baby with the bathwater in an attempt to be all things to all people. More so than the paucity of rap breaks on this album, and more so than the presence of swearing or the uncharacteristic slow songs, the problem is that all of this stuff together, on one album, doesn't mesh well. It feels a lot like a mix tape comprised of 2/3 of the tracks from a Chester Bennington solo album, and a few B-side experiments that got cut from the last Linkin Park album because they didn't "fit the flow". Apparently "flow" was nowhere close to being a consideration on this album, as it whiplashes from p!issed-off rocker to sensitive-guy ballad and back - a few of the sonic diversions are actually great steps forward for Linkin Park, but because we circle around opposite extremes of the band's core sound, never settling for the familiar happy medium in the center, it exposes how fundamentally weak Chester is without Mike, and how much less interesting Mike is when he's not rapping. Not to say that the guy can't sing or be a multi-instrumentalist - he performs such duties throughout the album and he isn't bad at it. But there's hardly any "counterpoint" to Chester's bi-polar emoting any more. No interjected commentary to fill in the blanks. For the most part, it's rather boring.

There were definitely some positive changes made on this album, though - a few songs take a more political tone, and while taking a veiled swipe at ol' Dubya is a cliché in and of itself in rock music these days, those cuts are probably the strongest, lyrically speaking, because they attain a little more specificity than the band's usual "manic depressive teenager" persona. Most notable is the fact that drummer Rob Bourdon and guitarist Brad Delson get to shine more than they have on past albums. Scaling back the programming and DJ effects (Sorry, Joe Hahn, I can still sort of hear you in the background ambience here and there) gives Rob a chance to provide more urgent, man-made rhythms to the up-tempo songs, and Brad actually gets to let a few solos rip - nothing that technically amazing, but it sure sounds better than the wall-to-wall power chords that characterized most of the band's previous work. The net balance is still negative in terms of how the band's changed, but these positive elements do offer me some tiny amount of solace.

Wake
I think Linkin Park is applying for a patent on the useless instrumental intro. (OK, I rather liked the violin thingie from Reanimation, but Meteora's "Foreword" was pointless, and so is this.) A minute of quiet ambience leads into the buildup of thumping drums, which burts into a brief bit of guitar chordage in 3/4 time, and it's all over in about a minute 45, not leading into the second track in any sort of a satisfying or sensible way.

Given Up
Wake in a sweat again
Another day's been laid to waste
In my disgrace...
The first actual song on the record shows Linkin Park pursuing the absolute worst of their collective instincts. Like most tracks on the album, it's a Chester-dominated affair, and in order to prove they're no longer doing the slick rap/rock thing, Brad Delson gives us more of a scratchy, palm-muted, pop-punk sort of riff, with some unusual (but slightly amusing) handclaps keeping the beat. It's kind of catchy, but any interest that the riff provides fades away as soon as we get to the lyrics, which are so typical teen-angst that it's not even funny, and delivered in a slightly deranged, mildly off-key tone by Chester. Basically he's having another panic attack and wishing he could be anywhere but inside his own head, but the description if this isn't remotely as interesting as it was in "Crawling" - the writing is the perfect definition of "generic". Making matters worse is the chorus, in which she snarls in his usual Beavis-like tone, "Tell me, what the f*ck is wrong with me?" (Is that a rhetorical question, or can I take a few wild guesses?) By the time the band gets to the bridge, they've delved into the ridiculous depths of unintentional self-parody, as Chester repeatedly shrieks, "Put me out of my misery!" (He changes it to "f*cking misery" the last time, just to be sure we get the point.) Hey Chester, that's not a bad suggestion, and I see plenty of raised hands in the audience who would be quite willing to fulfill your request. They'd be pulling double duty, since they'd be putting you out of my misery as well. The band has managed to create their most irritating song despite its two-minutes-and-change running time - seriously, this thing is more difficult to get through than the awful remixes "Enth E Nd" and "X-ecutioner Style", which should be sufficient warning to all of you - steer clear if you know what's good for you.

Leave Out All the Rest
I'm struggling to surface, not all the way through
I've never been perfect, but neither have you...
The soft twinkle of synthesized chords marks the first of many "whiplash" transitions on the album - it's only the second full song and already we've gone soft. Soft's not a bad thing in and of itself, but dudes, it's way too soon for this. (That's an early signal of how few up-tempo songs they had to work with when deciding the track order.) I actually enjoy the melody and overall ambience of this track - Chester's singing in his much more sensitive tone of voice, reflecting on a dream he had where he turned up missing and only one of his friends actually cared to go looking for him. It's a more somber reflection on the death that he apparently wished for in "Given Up" - he's realizing that if he were to really disappear and never return, he wouldn't want to leave behind memories of anger and frustration. So he asks his friend in the chorus, "Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed." That's about one of the most profound things I've ever heard in a Linkin Park song. It's a decent balance between the band's computerized side and their newfound love of a more "live" sound, since the chorus breaks out with more of an urgent, emotional feeling thanks to the drums and guitar. It's totally aimed at the hot end of AC radio, but it's a pleasant enough song to make it passable. I don't love it, but I like it.

Bleed It Out
Go, stop the show
Chopping boards and a sloppy flow
Shotgun opera, lock and load
Cock it back and then watch it go...
The band left a little bit of studio chatter lingering behind the beginning and ending of this quick blast of a song, I guess to give it a more informal, "we're-just-having-fun-making-the-album" sort of feel, complete with the cliché applause at the end. Ignoring that, it's great to hear Mike's rap vocals again, this time against a speedy rock rhythm that's very un-hip-hop - just a four-on-the-floor drum beat and some more of the hand-clapping stuff, plus a spiffy little guitar riff that avoids the sludgy power chordage. Musically, this is all great fun, though not terribly inventive. The lyrics are where I start to lose interest - this time it's Mike who has the dirty mouth (he even acknowledges in the verse that he can offer no excuse for it), saying he's going out of his f*cking mind. Whatever. They clearly meant for this to be a party song, though in Linkin park's usual fashion, they find reasons to unite the crowd and get fists pumping in all of the painful things that inspired them to write songs in the first place. As Chester summarizes in the chorus (several mind-numbing times, as a matter of fact), "I bleed it out, dig in deeper, just to throw it away". It's a rather cliché sentiment that unfortunately gets too much focus placed on its repetition. And there's more senseless screaming in the bridge - I don't hate all of Chester's screaming, but so far on this record he's sounded patently ridiculous when doing it. This one's not nearly as catastrophic as "Given Up" thanks to Mike serving as a mitigating factor, but it still isn't the total blast I've come to expect from past collaborations between these two guys.

Shadow of the Day
Pink cards and flowers on your window
Your friends all plead for you to stay
Sometimes beginnings aren't so simple
Sometimes goodbye's the only way...
Now we go mellow again - this time a creepy "thump-tssss-thump-tssss" similar to Nine Inch Nails's "Closer" is married to a prominent bass line that's unabashedly similar to U2's "With or Without You". Chester's even more unapologetically mellow this time, since the melody lacks the "dark" coloring typical of Linkin Park's usual stuff, going a lot more major key and sympathizing with a friend who appears to be sick and dying, resigned to the fact that "The sun will set for you". I like that Chester is vocally prolific enough to actually sound good when he's doing the soft crooning thing, but we're getting to the point where this sounds nothing like Linkin Park and a lot like several other nu-metal bands trying to score crossover hits with an audience who isn't rambunctious enough for their heavy stuff. (Past LP ballads like "Easier to Run" managed to show Chester's sensitive side while still being musically cohesive with the rest of the album.) It's too blatantly easygoing for the emotion to be totally convincing - I might sing along on occasion, but that doesn't mean I think the song works that well as a whole. It's too long for the lack of musically interesting moments that it provides, too - almost five minutes long, which tops any non-remix track by the band up until this point. Brad gets to actually play a guitar solo near the end, but it's nothing that you haven't heard on at least ten different U2 songs. Finally, there's some lingering ambience, and we flow rather smoothly into the next track.

What I've Done
In this farewell
There's no blood, there's no alibi
'Cause I've drawn regret
From the truth of a thousand lies...
You're probably familiar with this one - it's the current single with the slightly creepy piano melody and the most obvious ties to Linkin Park's past, harmonically and rhythmically speaking. It flows like an old LP song, with the rhythm guitar kicking in at just the right point and the chorus practically being a melodic clone of "Numb", which itself was too close to "Pushing Me Away" for comfort (though I still liked both of those songs and I admit to enjoying this one more and more as I get used to it). Just remove Mike's vocals and a good deal of the musical intensity from either of those songs, and you'll get this one. The lyrics are a bit different - ironically, the song that most closely resembles LP's past work is the one where the band claims to distance themselves from what we knew them for back in the day. Chester's using the metaphor of mercy washing away old sins (I like that he actually uses the word "mercy") as a plea for us to take his word for it and give the band a chance to redefine themselves. It's expressed in the expected cliché terms ("I face myself to cross out what I've become" and all that - none of it means a whole hell of a lot when there's not much clarity on what huge transgressions he was guilty of in the first place, but I can say the same thing about roughly 10,000 Christian songs that use similar jargon), and musically it sounds a bit thin, but I'll admit that piano melody really gets me hooked. So I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. At least I can sort of see a thematic connection to some of the earlier songs on the album - Chester has sung about dying or disappearing off the face of the planet as alternatives to dealing with his own self-pity, and here he's deciding to die a different kind of death - "In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi". What that says to me is that it's not suicide and he's not going to make excuses for the past - he's just going to cut his losses and die to his old self. Lines like that, where I can glean a lot of possible meaning from just a few words, are the sort of thing that I wish Linkin Park knew how to write more of.

Hands Held High
Do you see the soldiers that are out today
That brush the dust with bulletproof vests away
It's ironic, at times like this you pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday...
Mike Shinoda gets a moment to truly shine in this highly political song, which is a radical shift in subject for the album compared to the relatively superficial sentiments we've heard so far, but it's a welcome one. (Well, aside from the few f-bombs he drops in his first rap verse. Thankfully that‘s the final instance of the language which warranted a Parental Advisory label on this disc, which is weird, because I‘ve heard worse from Incubus on albums not given that label.) I like the unexpected approach of rapping in his cold, calculated voice over a bare drum beat - there's a bit of a military drum march style to it - and then having the chorus simply be a few of the guys in the band solemnly intoning, "Amen, Amen, Amen". Mike's words hit hard as they discuss the other side of war - the civilians and bystanders who end up being causalties of one government's decision to oust the other by a show of force, and who hear those government leaders on the news saying things that don't make sense, and not knowing whether to laugh or be terrified that so much control has been placed in the hands of a man who, to them, is a terrorist. It's a pretty heavy allegation, the U.S. government being terrorists and all - I don't necessarily think the analogy should be taken that far, but if I were to put myself in the shoes of an Iraqi citizen who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or Saddam's regime, I'd probably see America as a country full of terrorists, too. Anyway, the song doesn't unveil the reasons for its title until it gets to the creepy vocal coda which is repeated a few times after the last of the Amens - "With hands held high into a sky so blue, the ocean opens up to swallow you". That's just creepy, and it ensures that the song sticks with you. There are other LP songs that I certainly like a lot more, but I'd have to say that this is about the most intelligent song they've ever written. When Mike Shinoda's given enough space to be specific and come up with interesting phrases like "Have to react or get blown into fractions", he proves to be a rather thoughtful writer, as evidenced on the few Fort Minor tracks that he doesn't spend doing the typical bragging thing.

No More Sorrow
Are you lost in your lies?
Do you tell yourself I don't realize
Your crusade's a disguise?
Well, looks like Linkin Park went and wrote themselves a Green Day song. Well, not quite - Chester Bennington can't quite manage the same level of ingeniously snotty storytelling as Billy Joe Armstrong, but this song's got the same rhythm as "Holiday", just with more fierce, metallic guitar riffs to back it up. The intro here is killer, and you can tell that Linkin Park can create quite the wall of sound when they unhook themselves from the machinery (as much as I love so many of their old songs, I have noticed that the reliance on electronic stuff can restrain the musical intensity a bit). What hurts the song for me is the same thing that hurts most of the album - the vocals are all Chester. His scratchy snarl is perfect for the sound of this song, but it's all a lot of top-level generalizations about a leader who lies and acts hypocritical and whose "time has come to be replaced". By the time he gets around to screaming "Thieves and hypocrites!" three times in the bridge, you can't help but wonder how many people have already said the exact same thing in a much more urgent and profound way. The rest of the band totally kicks butt here, but because of Chester, I can't see this song as anything more than a guilty pleasure.

Valentine's Day
And the clouds above moved closer
Looking so dissatisfied
And the ground below grew colder
As they put you down inside...
In keeping with the pattern on most of this album, another Chester-dominated ballad kills the momentum after a musically satisfying rocker - this one's a bit too bare bones and takes too long to build to its climax. They could have really given this song a creepy ambient treatment like they did with "My December", but apparently they preferred to let Joe Hahn sit around in the studio without much to do, so this is what we got. Chester's mourning the death of someone he loved - possibly the person who he was prematurely eulogizing in "Shadow of the Day" - and I feel for the guy, but he's kind of boring me here. It doesn't help that we have to deal with the painfully obvious cliché of being alone on Valentine's Day. The phrase "On a Valentine's Day" is the entire chorus of the song, not appearing until the very end. It's cleverly overlaid with vocal lines from one of the earlier verses, but that's about the only musically interesting aspect of the song.

In Between
And I cannot explain to you
And anything I say or do or plan
Fear is not afraid of you
But guilt's a language you can understand...
It was announced while the band was still working on the album that they were going to let Mike Shinoda sing an entire song all by himself. This makes sense - the surprising diversion "Breaking the Habit" was sung entirely by Chester on the last album even though Mike wrote it, and it was a good showpiece for Chester, but I kind of wondered what it would have sounded like if sung by the actual writer. So now I've heard Mike's singing voice, unimpeded by Chester or any of the BGV's you'd normally hear during a Linkin Park chorus (he's sung before in songs like "Don't Stay", but it's hard to pick him out), and I have to say, the guy sounds like he's totally bored with himself half the time. It doesn't help that this song is all keyboards and dull, rounded, synthesized musical shapes. It's too much of a polar opposite of the rhythms and rhymes we'd usually expect from Shinoda - I give him credit for being versatile, but he's totally boring me with this pre-emptive apology for telling the truth. We get it, he's a guy who has his pride and has a hard time admitting he's screwed up, so we should appreciate the transparency... but no. Not when it's as utterly boring as this. He should feel the need to apologize for giving us a three-minute-long yawn instead of a solid song. (Whoever I originally downloaded this album from - yes, I know I'm a bad person for doing that, and I'm totally over it - added insult to injury by mislabeling the Fort Minor track "The Hard Way" as this one, and that song happens to contain a really interesting Shinoda rap in 6/8 time, causing me to declare it the best song on Minutes to Midnight by far, until I found out it wasn't even on the album. DOH.)

In Pieces
You promise me the sky
Then toss me like a stone
You wrap me in your arms
And chill me to the bone...
Keyboard notes that sound like some electronically manipulated sounds from a child's nursery open this odd little song which sounds like it might be another boring Chester ballad at first, but which eventually opens up into a rather punchy rocker that sneaks in through the back door, thanks to Brad's little stabs of guitar (ever-so-slightly reggae inspired, but without the syncopation, if that makes any sense). Chester's singing another woe-is-me-I-lost-my-girlfriend song, though I think this time the person was just a jerk to him instead of going and dying on him, so I guess that's an improvement? The lyrics he's written about her are certainly nothing to write home about, and his unnecessarily grouchy vocals really hurt what might have otherwise been a catchy chorus. Really, I like this one for the way it morphs from a psuedo-ballad into a jumpy, quirky rocker over the course of about three minutes, with the highlight (and possibly the most fun instrumental moment on the entire album) being a rather slick solo from Mr. Delson. OK, so it's a totally 80's-inspired solo, but I love the way his fingers fly. He's been set free from the land of monotonous power chords, hallelujah, praise be to God Almighty.

The Little Things Give You Away
All you've ever wanted
Was someone to truly look up to you
And six feet underwater, I do...
Here we find the band attempting their first epic ballad (remixes like "Krwling" notwithstanding), and I have to give them a lot of credit here, they came up with a fairly convincing one. Joe Hahn finally comes out of the woodwork to provide a glitchy rhythm that sounds like 6/4 as this song slowly begins to unfold - for a while the electronic squeaks and scratches, and Brad's quietly menacing guitar chords are all alone with Chester, as he apparently sings from the point of view of a Hurricane Katrina victim, lambasting the establishment for not mobilizing quickly enough to save him. That's where my imagination takes me when listening to this one, anyway - to the same creepy headspace as Vienna Teng's show-stopping ballad "Pontchartrain" (though the two sound nothing alike, but thematically, they'd make a hell of a one-two punch on a mix CD). The song begins to open up more after the first chorus, with Rob Bourdon's drums gradually rolling in and revealing that Joe's beat is actually subdivided into threes, which revises my guess at the time signature from 6/4 to either 9/8 or 18/16. Whatever the case, it's more complex than I expected, and it gives the song a wonderfully moving sense of restlessness as the live beat plays off of the electronic one, while the band slowly works their way into a melancholy storm punctuated by an emotional guitar solo. It's not like any of this is that difficult, technically speaking, but the mood suit's the music extremely well, which help's the song's protagonist to get the sobering point across that those who claim to want to serve and protect him really don't give a rat's @$$. This all culminates in a chilling acapella ending where the title of the song is repeated with Chester's chorus overlapping them - it's a brilliant six minutes, and for once in Linkin Park's existence, they came up with a closing song that actually makes sense at the end of a record, rather than just being the last of a batch of fast songs that cuts off suddenly because they had no more left to throw onto the record. Good job here, guys.

The evidence of true growth presented in a handful of songs on Minutes to Midnight makes the regression shown on the rest of it all the more frustrating. You see, I thought at first that maybe Linkin Park really had the same attitude that they always did and it was just me who had outgrown the whole thing, and therefore I probably should have been harder on them the entire time, speaking from a critical standpoint. But you know what, I popped in Meteora this week and still enjoyed it just as much as I did in 2003 - I had my gripes about it, but it was tons of fun from beginning to end, and I just don't think I'd have felt that way about an album like this one back then, nor can I force-feed most of these songs to myself now in the hopes of making myself like them more. I'm nowhere near impressed enough to want to buy the CD, and I'd probably have to see it in a $9.99 bargain bin before springing for it (even that price is a little generous). Hardcore LP fans who have weathered the storm will probably tell me I'm closed-minded and just wanted to hear the same album over and over, but I think my enjoyment of a few tracks that are stylistically very unexpected for them should be sufficient to refute those claims. Put quite simply, I know Linkin Park can do better. All I ever really expected from them was solid ear candy and maybe an interesting lyric here and there, and the fact that most of the album even fails on that level is truly distressing.

ALBUM WORTH:
Wake $0
Given Up -$.50
Leave Out All the Rest $1
Bleed It Out $1
Shadow of the Day $.50
What I've Done $1.50
Hands Held High $1.50
No More Sorrow $1
Valentine's Day $0
In Between $0
In Pieces $1
The Little Things Give You Away $1.50
TOTAL: $8.50

Band Members:
Chester Bennington: Lead vocals, guitar
Mike Shinoda: Lead vocals, guitar, piano, keyboard
Joseph Hahn: Tuntables, programming, sampling
Brad Delson: Lead guitar
Rob Bourdon: Drums
Dave "Phoenix" Farrell: Bass

Website: http://www.linkinpark.com

Recommended: No