Artist: Linkin Park
Album: The Hunting Party
Released: 2014
Most fans of Linkin Park will agree that the high points of the band's career were the sublime
double offerings of Hybrid Theory (2000) and Meteora (2003). To this day, Hybrid Theory is still the biggest selling debut album of the 21st century, with around 30 million copies being sold so far, which is something usually unheard of in the metal genre... the "noughties" were a very different time though.
Buoyed by external pressure to travel back to their roots as one of the pioneers of the tidal wave of American nu-metal, Linkin Park certainly kick things off on their sixth studio album with aplomb. Keys To The Kingdom begins with the most deafening of screams that lead vocalist Chester Bennington is synonymous with, albeit whilst being backed by what sounds like a vocoder. Lead single Guilty All The Same shows that there is still life in this beast yet; many will have written off this band after their shift towards an over-reliance on electronic music on their most recent albums, notably Living Things and A Thousand Suns. The heaviness has returned on The Hunting Party, but it's a different kind of heaviness, and not the kind I would associate with the nu-metal genre. This is the record where Linkin Park shift towards a more alternative metal sound, rather than just tuning their guitars to Drop C# and throwing out power chord after power chord, a formula which worked so well on a number of hit singles from Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Still though, Wastelands, Final Masquerade and Until It's Gone are good examples of how Linkin Park can still write catchy pop hooks, with the latter sounding like it would feel right at home on Bring Me The Horizon's more radio-friendly album Sempiternal.
Collaborations run amok on this record, and where some strike with incredible power, others fall flat. Page Hamilton from Helmet lends his vocal abilities to All For Nothing, but it's nothing to really shout from the rooftops about; I find myself wondering if many of the younger Linkin Park fans would even know who Helmet are. I don't really think Rakim's contribution to Guilty All The Same was necessary; Mike Shinoda himself is a very good rapper and could easily have been left alone to spit those rhymes himself. System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian makes an appearance on Rebellion, and although System are yet to get their shit together and record a new album, this song serves up a delightful slab of modern metal guitar riffs that are just typical of Malakian; fans of System Of A Down should whet their appetites with this. Seen as he is my favourite guitarist, I had high hopes for the collaboration with Tom Morello, of Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave/The Nightwatchman fame, on Drawbar. It started off with some ambient U2 vibes, but then enter the military drum sequence. One expected a throwback to 90's politically charged rap metal, but instead there is a sombre beauty about this stripped back piano ballad that, on paper, shouldn't work... but it just does. In a way, I would describe it as missed opportunity to have Tom Morello on your album that is supposed to display your return to heavy music, and then limit him to a piano song that doesn't even break the three minute mark.
Linkin Park are starting to get into the mindset that they had when writing their first two or three records - whilst the rock is most certainly back, it comes in the form of punk rock, alternative metal and System Of A Down's brand of experimental metal. They tackle it well, but when it has to live up to the standards of Hybrid Theory, an album that contained twelve potential singles, it doesn't touch it. There are more high points on The Hunting Party than there are low, and Chester Bennington is in sparkling form on vocals, but it won't be knocking off Hybrid Theory or Meteora from their pedestals.
Rating: 7/10
Recommended songs: Rebellion, Final Masquerade
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