Linkin Park - One More Light

Linkin Park
One More Light
2017
Spotify

No one is quite sure why Nu-Metal got so popular in the early 2000s but the band at the forefront was Linkin Park. Their Rap Rock hybrid was everywhere from top 40 to basement parties. They damn near defined the genre and spawned numerous imitators. Since that time however it has been a struggle for Linkin Park to capture their mojo, their former genre more of a joke than anything else. On this new album, their seventh, the band have all but abandoned their former sound and settled into...I guess... a more pop stance? The first two tracks are so vanilla even with Pusha T and Stormzy providing verses for "Good Goodbye". From the very beginning of the record it just feels so slight an uninspired and even Chester's vocals which are usually aggressive and cutting try to be sweet on this album. You just can never figure why the band would make these choices because they don't really seem to serve anything. It would be nice if they at least had the same fire and passion in their tracks that they used to have, but they just don't. Linkin Park just sleepwalk their entire way through this album, content with mediocrity. Maybe the most egregious thing on the record is Mike Shinoda's rapping which was never all that good, but now just feels fucking laughable.

"Battle Symphony" is perhaps the worst song on this already bad album, as it tries to create this inspiring anthem but fails incredibly short. The lyrics are pandering at best and Chester sounds like he does not believe a single word He is saying. I guess Mike Shinoda also thinks He is a singer now singing the track "Indivisible" which is another bomb-a-roo. It is nearly impossible to separate the first five tracks of the album, they just sound exactly the same start to finish. The inclusion on Kiiara is also an odd choice, as she brings none of her signature chopped up vocals but instead sings a basic "why isn't our love working" song with Chester. It is just lame decision after lame decision on this record. "Sorry for Now" almost gets to the soaring sound that Linkin Park seem to be chasing so hard, but it never quite has you fully buying in. The use of the "skrrt" on the atrocious song "Halfway Right" feels like so much pandering and adds absolutely zero to the track. There is nothing on this record that has not been done before, and quite honestly done much better. Avoid this shit like the plague.

1.0 out of 10