Minutes To Midnight [Explicit]

After two wildly successful albums, it's hard to pretend you're hyper-ventilating angry. So befalls Linkin Park, who turn to uber-producer Rick Rubin for guidance and make their best album yet.

All parties involved have seen the writing on the well: NuMetal and RapRock are teetering towards the tarpit. Evolve or die. Under Rubin's guidance, the band channeled their skills into other means of expression. Thus, once the true-to-form first song "Wake/Given Up" crashes your sound system, LP drops a major ballad in the form of "Leave Out All The Rest." In fact, the only traces left of the band that roared on Hybrid Theory are found on that opening track and on the excellent single, "Bleed It Out." Otherwise, maturity has found its place on "Minutes To Midnight."

After all, once you've left Southern California to sip Cristal with Jay-Z, tour the world and make a stop in Post-Katrina New Orleans ("The Little Things Give You Away"), well, "Numb" just isn't the song/viewpoint that's going to emerge. The band members that were just entering their twenties at their debut are now pushing thirty; rapper Mike Shinoda delivers the killer "Hands Held High," as virulent a protest song as any band, much less a band where the big protest number is rapped, delivered in 2007. It's then followed by Chester, who strikes hard with "No More Sorrow." It's some great stuff, powerful.

However, Linkin Park still has to overcome the presupposition that maturity also means syrupy. "Valentine's Day" is a sappy song with a dumb lyric, even if Chester tries to sound like he's really hurt. His hurt is far more convincing when he's po'd, but again, the NuMetal Sing-like-the-cookie-monster style has left the station, so LP probably decided to reign in the screams from popping up too often. It also means that there's a noticeable decrease in the guitar heroics which, while not a detriment, does remove some of the visceral force that made Meteora and the debut memorable.

Even minus the blunt force, "Minutes To Midnight" still whomps 90% of what passes for rock records these days. Linkin Park shows, on only their third studio album, that they have real potential to evolve to a band with staying power.

I had read them say prior to this albums release that this was going to be a completely different sounding album, two thoughts came to mind "uh-oh" and "Yeah right, every band says that." But it is a different sound, and it is a great album, bands need to evolve otherwise they just release the same CD over and over with different lyrics.

The only thing I don't like about this album is that they don't have that rap-rock sound to them anymore, its a much more emotional sound which is fine. But Fort Minor takes care of the rap shtuff for ya (even if he talks about how they wanted to take rap out of LP on there)

Sum it up... buy it

well, there's only about 4 or 5 songs on this album that i really like. in one way or the other, i feel like this album is just a step down from their previous 2 albums...

If only the minutes you had to endure to get to midnight while listening to this album were worth a few minutes, this may be a feasible album. Their attempts to completely lose their rap-technologic-rock came crashing down as a big mistake with this album. Songs like "Given Up" and "Bleed it Out" are sorry excuses for a high-school garage band with their clap tracks and simple repeating lyrics that hold no substance. "Shadow of the Day" sounds like it could be Kelly Clarkson's next hit and "What I've Done" is like pretty pop music with an angry voice. "Leave it All Out" reminds me of some sort of talent show attempt with two people singing simple harmonies while "Hand Held High" is a political crybaby song that seems to be made by Fort Minor, not LP. "no More Sorrow" is Linkin Park's attempt to sound like AFI apparently, with a beat that doesn't suit them and the random yelling in the chorus that's off tune. "valentine's Day" and "In Between"...I don't know what to say about these ones...just awful.

All in all, if you like Linkin Park because you listened to Reanimation or Meteora or Hybrid Theory...you'll hate this CD. It holds no substance, but instead attempts to include influences like Taking Back Sunday and AFI with some Pink and random pop. They lost their edge and for that I will forever be saddened by this disc.

Linkin Park is without a doubt, the most interesting group the 21th century has seen. While playing some awesome hits, they have also tried to keep the "family friendly police" away by offering cuss-free lyrics. Personally, I don't mind cussing depending how it is used, but I seem to think LP did nothing more than cussed just so they would either look cool or dangerous. Before I continue with my review, I'd like to say that an album is a heck a lot more than cussing. Anyway, Minutes to Midnight is a rather interesting album because although the band hasn't completely removed their rap-rock roots, they just don't cut it in this great album. Btw, many LP fans were quite annoyed that Mike Shinoda got benched for basically the whole album and was used in the worst songs of MIM: "Bleed it Out" and "Hands Held High". Speaking of Hands Held High, whats with the political crap? If you are gonna say bad stuff about our current president, at least make freakin' sense. Apparently, all that cash can drive people to do awesome tracks or just plan mediocre songs. Another interesting thing is that it seems like Linkin Park is doing whatever their producer tells them to. If you read the booklet, there are hints that they performed this song just because "Rick told them too." It was like one of the reviewers said, "If Rick told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?" (If I remembered your name, I'd mention it.) Like I said, the album is far from bad, but its far from Hybrid Theory too (I understand that sooner or later you gotta stay in the media and most of the time you have to change, so those "Fanboy" comments ain't gonna work out right.) If it weren't for Shadow of the Day, Given Up, In Pieces, What I've Done, and Valentine's Day, I'd be wondering how many minutes will it be till midnight before throwing this disk away. If you absolutely love Linkin Park and don't mind the potental changes, by all means buy. If you can't take LP without its rap-rock roots, you'll be disappointed.