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(42) Minutes To Midnight: The Linkin Park Album Review

My rating of Linkin Park’s Minutes To Midnight album: 6.9 / 10

Linkin Park Minutes To Midnight album cover

I got Linkin Park’s latest album Minutes To Midnight yesterday, thanks to my pal Prashanth. Here’s a track-by-track review first.

Wake (2 / 5): The shortest and a vocal free track. You’ll have to crank up your speaker volume right up to max to catch anything. Sounds more like an intro for The Matrix. The reason why I’m giving it a 2 it because nothing is very audible until a large part has been played, and then, the rest of the good part is too short.
Given Up (5 / 5): More hardcore metal intro, followed by typical LP style. A heavier track than the rest, and I liked the lyrics too (because I’m pretty much in the same introspective mood these days). It’s the BEST song out of the album by far, and I’d probably add it to my fave songs playlist too.
Leave Out All The Rest (5 / 5): The song is a very good advice to the music label executives who handled this album – leave out rest of the crap from this album. Again, it’s a newer style, more Simple Plan than Linkin Park, but it’s really good.
Bleed It Out (5 / 5): Nice song, the clap track sounds as if it’s meant to be some soccer anthem. Repetitive at parts. Typical LP style, and good.
Shadow Of The Day (4 / 5): A slow track. Sorta romantic. The vocals end early, leaving you thinking that the song is over, but there’s a good bit at the end which is only instrumental.
What I’ve Done (3 / 5): The most publicized song of the album, was released earlier. It’s sort of midway between the hardcore LP style and the new slower variety they’re trying out. Intro is lot like the sort of music the use to start of the credits after trashy horror movies. Definitely not worth making the flagship song of the album. I just don’t GET how this pathetic song can make it to the top of charts.
Hands Held High (2 / 5): I don’t like rap (this is one’s mostly rap), so my judgement might be biased, but I didn’t like this one that much. The instrumental sounds as if it was done by a one-man (one-boy?) school band with chorus’s in between which seem inspired by the Mr Bean theme song. Very confused song, with the last part not rap at all.
No More Sorrow (2 / 5): Starts off as an attempt to convert the theme of The Terminator into a funeral song (which means it doesn’t match with the title). Instruments are more Dimmu Borgir than Linkin Park.
Valentine’s Day (3 / 5): A slower, softer track. Doesn’t use the typical LP chorus style too much.
In Between (5 / 5): Looking at the track title, it should probably have been the 5 / 6th track. It’s ABSOLUTELY unlike any other LP track you would have heard. Vocals get highest priority and it’s a really slow song. Out of the different styles tried out, this ones probably the best.
In Pieces (3 / 5): An attempt at mixing a slow song with faster rock, and falls flat on its face.
The Little Things Give You Away (5 / 5): After a string of bad songs towards the end, the album finally ends with a better song. This is the longest track in the album – about 6 minutes long – and has long vocals-free stretches, which frankly are pretty good. I liked the end of the song a lot – nicely done, but it’s more an accomplishment on part of Hahn, I guess.

Overall, it seems as if LP or their music label got too greedy, and tried to attract more sales by putting in more genres (this one was co-produced by Mike Shinoda, BTW). That messed up this album – hardcore LP fans who liked their rap-metal-punk sort of style appealing will be disappointed; while those of not interested in LP probably won’t buy it anyway. It’s mostly the older style ones which I liked more. And hey, listen more carefully, and you’ll find that it’s not only Chester Bennington who’s done the vocals, but even Mike Shinoda has chipped in, although Chester is of course, still the lead. It also suffers because nobody expects such bad things from LP, not after Meteora and Hybrid Theory. Minutes To Midnight simply becomes an album for collection’s sake for LP fans, but some songs are really good. And this is something you should have, even if it doesn’t quite touch the high standards of their earlier albums.

PS: Wondering about the title of the post? Just have a look at WHEN this was posted… 😉

3 replies on “(42) Minutes To Midnight: The Linkin Park Album Review”

You’re simply obsessed with H2G2. Linkin Park…Been There, Done That. Collision Course showed us their fall. All their songs have the same beat…boring!!!

Not worthy to fit on a million iPods…but you’ll still find them.

The only reason why LP would make a profit with such a shit album is because of certain people who still love them for Hybrid Theory, and Reanimation. LP is no longer half of what they used to be.

6.9/10 is way too much. It is too monotonous, crappy, and doesn’t deserve anything more than 5.

@Ramit: I gave it a 6.9 because I found some songs good, like Bleed It Out and all.

@Abhi: Definitely. Earlier albums were much better.

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