Album Review
Linkin Park - Living ThingsLinkin Park – Living Things

Linkin Park are back with their fifth studio album ‘Living Things’ an album which consists of 12 tracks and runs for just under 36 minutes, once again Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin took on production duties and over the past few months Linkin Park have spent a lot of time explaining how the album features elements of their past four albums and after giving it a listen you can’t help but agree.

‘Living Things’ opens with ‘Lost In The Echo’ a song which sounds like Linkin Park have simply put all their music from the past 12 years into a blender and come up with a big mix of everything they have ever done as the song opens with strong catchy electronic soundscapes, whilst at the 40 second mark Mike Shinoda comes in with his stand out rapping before Chester Bennington comes in at just over the 1minute mark with slightly rockier sounding vocals which enter the screamo territory as the song progresses, the song happens to be a perfect start to the album and one that I can see people coming back to listen to again and again.

‘In My Remains’ is quite an beautiful sounding song where Chester Bennington really goes for it with emotional vocals, lyrically the song is one of the most personal songs that Linkin Park have wrote with lyrics of “Come apart Falling in the cracks Of every broken heart Digging through the wreckage Of your disregard Sinking down and waiting For the chance, to feel alive”

‘Burn It Down’ is the lead single to be taken from ‘Living Things’ and after listening to the album all the way through you will easily understand why because it is so different from anything else featured on the album and it also has that radio friendly vibe running throughout but also keeps up to the Linkin Park standards of rap rock crossover.

‘Lies Greed Misery’ is one beastly track that comes at you like a kick in the balls, Mike Shinoda takes centre stage with a mad flurry of electronic soundscapes whilst rapping over the top and Chester Bennington comes in like he has something he wants to get off his chest as he vents his anger in such an aggressive way.

‘I’ll Be Gone’ has the feeling of a future Linkin Park single, it opens up in a mellow way and before you know it Chester Bennington’s vocals become upbeat as he sings “When the lights go out and we openour eyes,out there in the silence, I'll be gone,I'll be gone”.

I feel that as the album progresses to the last handful of tracks things become experimental and the excitement from the first few tracks of the album is lost as Linkin Park slip back to the sound of their last couple of albums ‘Minutes To Midnight’ and ‘A Thousand Suns’ but luckily tracks like ‘Victimized’ see Linkin Park go on a full on aggressive assault like they did in their olden days and this helps make the later part of the album bearable.

It is safe to say that ‘Living Things’ is the strongest Linkin Park album release since ‘Meteora’ but the problem it holds is the fact that it features 6 solid sounding tracks whilst the rest of the album has a big filler feeling however the band have done well incorporating the sounds from all their albums into ‘Living Things’ and I am sure that there are many people with the opposite view to me who prefer the later part of the album to the earlier.

4/5

Review by Trigger
 Band Members
Linkin Park - Band
Chester Bennington
Rob Bourdon
Brad Delson
Dave Farrell
Joe Hahn
Mike Shinoda
 Track Listing
1. Lost In The Echo
2. In My Remains
3. Burn It Down
4. Lies Greed Misery
5. I'll Be Gone
6. Castle Of Glass
7. Victemized
8. Roads Untravelled
9. Skin To Bone
10. Until It Breaks
11. Tinfoil
12. Powerless
 Band Related Links
Linkin Park Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?