When nu metal thundered to a halt in the early noughties, there were a lot of casualties. Korn have faded to almost nothing, Limp Bizkit became a joke (whether they were ever anything else is debatable), Deftones are still great, but on a much smaller scale and bands like Taproot, Adema, Papa Roach, Ill Nino are, well, pretty much dead. The one band though who came through the transition without so much as a worried glance, were Linkin Park.
And came through spectacularly. Even now, ten years on from their debut “Hybrid Theory” which yielded a Thriller aping seven singles, they're one of the biggest bands in the world. To go with the band there’s their own travelling festival, the accompanying tracks to the Transformers series, easily the world's biggest franchise and albums that sell by the ocean liner load. Their last album, 2007's "Minutes To Midnight" shifted over five million copies and they moved from the world's arenas to football stadiums. After a brief hiatus to dick around with side projects and have children, they're back, with a new album "A Thousands Suns", their second on the trot with uber producer and saviour of Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin.
All the talk from the band that precedes their new single "The Catalyst" is of reinvention. New starts, new directions, experimentation, trying new sounds for the first time and seeing where it takes them. Bands often talk like this. Most of them are lying. Judging by "The Catalyst", Linkin Park definitely are.
That's not to say they're deliberately misleading everyone, but this is not their “Berlin” or “Kid A”. Experimentation to the California sextet clearly means chucking a few more keyboards on the track and a few more sound effects. “The Catalyst” is still a big. Stomping. Rock Song.
To give the band their dues, the vocals are more distorted and the guitars may be secondary to the electronics, but the Park (as someone, presumably calls them)'s lyrics of alienation and betrayal are still there, the mournful bridge after the second chorus is present and correct, and Bennington's familiar soaring vocal power towers over the track. It works. All Linkin Park’s songs work. They’re carefully put together creations, test tube fostered stadium rock. The riffs are just simple enough for thirteen year olds to figure out on their first Squire guitars, the lyrics speak of pain and suffering without ever being too grimy or specific and the chorus is stickier than a theme park bin.
There are flecks of something new, especially the lack of guitars, but you can’t call it a departure. Maybe there’s more experimentation to come from the album, that’d be a turn up though. They discovered a long time ago what they do well and they wouldn’t have ditched the rapping that graced their first two albums with so much consummate ease if they didn’t really care what people thought. Whether they worried about alienating anybody is something only they know, but this is no big departure or break with the past. This is a song to be sung by thousands in fields and stadiums for the next two years. That’s what they do.
Once again, make up your mind here:
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