CD Review: Linkin Park - "The Hunting Party" (Warner Bros.)
First things first, The
Hunting Party is not Hybrid Theory.
While it may find the band at their heaviest since 2003’s Meteora, it’s still an unfair comparison as they are two entirely
different records indicative of two entirely different time periods. The Hunting Party sticks an emphatic
middle finger in the face of today’s sterile rock scene as frontman Chester Bennington
defiantly proclaims ‘No control/No surprise/I'm my own casualty/I fuck up
everything I see/Fighting in futility’ during the opening seconds of “Keys to
The Kingdom,” a clear result of Mike Shinoda and company being tired of ‘hundreds
of bands copying bands like Mumford and Sons and Arcade Fire.’ While Linkin
Park has always been perfectly capable of unleashing the heavy (see “No More
Sorrow” – Minutes To Midnight, “Blackout”
– A Thousand Suns, “Victimized” – Living Things), they haven’t brought it
at such a clip in nearly a decade. The
Hunting Party is a cacophony of sound, fueled by strident, chugging guitars
and booming, deafening percussion (“Guilty All The Same,” “Rebellion,” “Mark
the Graves”). “Final Masquerade” is The
Hunting Party’s “Numb,” an emotional mid-tempo ballad full of lingering and
haunting melodies, and the record also dabbles in borderline hardcore punk (“War”)
and serves up perhaps the bands flat out heaviest output to date (“A Line in the
Sand”). Furthermore, the vocal back and forth between Bennington and Helmet’s
Page Hamilton on “All For Nothing” is a thing of beauty and the shredding “Wastelands”
featuring System Of A Down’s Daron Malakian could have very well been the lead
single off of a new SOAD record. No, The
Hunting Party doesn’t prove Linkin Park is back, because, the fact is, they
never left.
Grade: A
Go Download: “A Line In The Sand”
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