April 12, 2007
The Star

click here for photo

Linkin Park is poised for bigger things with its eagerly awaited third studio outing Minutes to Midnight.

By melding elements of alternative metal, post grunge, hip-hop and electronica to create a muscular, MTV-friendly heavy rock sound with a strong visual edge, Californian six-piece Linkin Park has emerged to become the biggest selling rock band in the world – even outselling the likes of U2 – with the Grammy awards to show for its troubles. 

The across-the-board success of the band’s albums like the multi-million selling debut Hybrid Theory, its equally successful follow-up Meteora and Collision Course, the genre-busting mash-up collaboration with Jay-Z, has firmly established Linkin Park as one of the most popular rock acts in the world. Now after a lengthy hiatus, Linkin Park is back in world domination mode with a new album, a new sound and a new world tour all set to go. 

Scheduled for release on May 14, the band’s new album Minutes to Midnight was produced by Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin, the renowned studio whiz who helmed records by legends like the Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Run DMC and Johnny Cash. 

Recorded at the infamous Mansion studio, situated high up on the beautiful surrounds of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, Minutes to Midnight has been touted (by the band members and critics) as the band’s best and most important work to date. The band spent over 14 months in the studio and wrote over a 100 songs during the making of Minutes to Midnight, an album which vocalist/rapper Mike Shinoda views as “a breakthrough in the development of the band’s sound”.  

According to Shinoda, new methods of songwriting were explored by the band for the album, using instruments and equipment that they hadn’t experimented with before, like vintage guitars and amps, mellotron and even Rubin’s original Roland 808 drum machine that he used on the first Beastie Boys record (License to Ill in 1986).  

Commented Rubin on the band’s new musical direction on Minutes to Midnight: “It doesn’t sound like rap rock. There’s very strong songwriting running though the songs. It’s a very melodic and progressive record.” 

In preparation for the album’s release next month, media from the region were given a rare opportunity to be among the first people in the world to taste the potency of Linkin Park’s new material for themselves last week, when the band staged a special media listening session at a posh hotel in Kuala Lumpur to present the album. In a real coup for the band’s record company, frontman Chester Bennington agreed to fly in to Malaysia to attend the track-by-track listening session, participate in a question and answer session and appear at an album pre-sale launch at Tower Records in KLCC. 

So how good is the new Linkin Park album really?  

Well, initial reactions at the listening session revealed Minutes to Midnight to be an accessible sounding album that effectively showcased the maturing sound of the band without being too far removed from the Linkin Park sound of old.  

Although the band have been talking about how different the album sounds compared to its previous records, in truth there really isn’t too much that has changed about the band’s sound. Rubin may given the band a more streamlined rock sound but strip away the sonics on generic rockers on the album like Given Up, lead single What I’ve Done, Bleed it Out and No More Sorrow and the songs still come across as quintessential Linkin Park – heavy, angry, but radio-friendly at the same time. 

The main difference between this new album and its previous records is the mood and tempo of the material. Rather than come across loud, distorted and metallic, the songs on Minutes to Midnight are generally slower and subtle, with more atmospheric and melodic twists. It’s on the slower material like Shadow of the Day – a dead ringer for U2’s With Or Without You but with nu-metal overtones – and the anthemic Hands Held High with its church organ and gospel harmonies that the new, more mature, gentler side of Linkin Park comes into play.  

Elsewhere, the moody rock ballads like Leave Out the Rest, In-Between (featuring a lead vocal from Shinoda) and the sombre album closer The Little Things Give You Away show that Linkin Park is not adverse to showing off its sensitive, emotive side.  

With an even spread of accessible loud rockers, mid-tempo anthems and heartfelt ballads, Minutes to Midnight is the kind of impeccably produced, mainstream album that Linkin Park fans will take to heart with no fuss. In terms of musical progression, it’s not too dramatic a shift as the band and record company would have you believe ,and certainly not one that would alienate the existing audience via rampant experimentation.  

A lot of the time, the songs still sound unmistakably like Linkin Park. Rather than something radical, Minutes to Midnight is the sound of a maturing band getting comfortable with their newfound status as the biggest band in the world.