Linkin Park -- Minutes To Midnight

I admit it, I bought this album today. I was curious to check it out. And all I can say is.... wait, who is this? Violins? It feels like Linkin Park decided to go back to the early 80s and hang out with Metallica. If you bought this album because you were looking for the old Linkin Park, I can tell you that if this album is what's on the horizon, then the Linkin Park you knew is close if not dead. Luckily for those hardcore fans, there are one or two songs which almost go back to their old sounds, but not quite. Here's some interviews about the album. "We were looking back at the things that we had done in the past... and I think we just figured that we had exhausted that sound. It was easy for us to replicate, it was easy for other bands to replicate, and we just needed to move on," said Mike Shinoda. Apparently this album is their first album to contain guitar solos. And as much as I hate to say it, some of the songs sound like U2. Has this band gone off the deep end? "Hands Held High" and "Valentine's Day" sound like they were directly influenced by U2. Though I'm not a big fan of Linkin Park it feels almost like they decided to leave being the top of the pack and take a second teir to 30 Seconds To Mars. Even the lyrics which I usually don't notice feel strangly alienating. For instance a sampling from the song "In Between", "Let me apologize to begin with, let me apologize for what I'm about to say but trying to be genuine was harder then it seemed and somehow I got caught up in between." This song is on a surprisingly light track and feels extremely un-"genuine". To summarize, this band though they didn't have the best sound, were the top of their tier, and though I do like the fact they're trying something else, they didn't do a very good job with it and are now among the scatterings of smaller alternative rock bands. They've lost their identity when they tried to find a new one. I will say this though, I am happy to see the cd have a parental advisory and the fact that the cd had a bunch of F words in it. The reason why I'm happy with this is that many people I know said they were a good band because they had clean lyrics. Now they've also gone against that.

Seriously folks, this is an awful album. In looking at other reviews, the only place I can find that gave it a good review was Rolling Stone, the one place I read before buying the album. They gave this awful album four stars. This album doesn't even feel produced well. This album is a disappointment and just plain dumb. Don't get it, even if you do like Linkin Park, in fact especially if you do like Linkin Park. I'm going to give this album 1 out of 4 stars. I'd give it lower but I was slightly entertained on the 11th track "In Pieces" until they went against what they were starting and went back to U2. And if I liked listening to U2 ripoff bands then this one would be a good one to choose. Awful album, by far their worst.