Linkin Park - 'Minutes To Midnight' (Warners) Released 14/05/07

Everything seemed set for the re-emergence of one of the most influential and ground-breaking bands of the early 00’s, A headline slot at this summer’s Download Festival and a release of a brand new album four years in the making, the impact could have been huge. But no matter how much hype, PR talk-up and exposure a band can get, if the product they are selling is flawed the whole thing just won’t work. ‘Minutes To Midnight’ is a shiny new toy from the respected makers of ‘Hybrid Theory’ and ‘Meteora’ but it’s missing parts, has been pushed together with little artistic flair or passion and is a sorry inferior product riding of its makers name.  No songs come near ‘In The End’ , ‘Crawling’ or ‘Numb’ no songs have the spark and fresh inventive edge of ‘One More Step Closer’ and ‘Breaking The Habit’. Instead the majority of tracks on ‘Minutes To Midnight’ are stagnant, forgettable, done before soft rock, that only the vocals link them to Linkin Park of old.  

The Southern Californian sextet did something special after ‘Hybrid Theory’ they cracked and conquered the mainstream without tarnishing their image and respectability with the metal crowd and their hardcore fans. They were leaders and even inventors of their scene, but with time comes change and trends die. Linkin Park have tried to readjust and reinvent themselves even going down the ‘new direction’ road but they have well and truly hit a dead end. 

On ‘Minutes To Midnight’ Linkin Park feel insignificant and stale. They may well have inspired some of today’s bands but Chester Bennington rather ironically sums up their future the best, singing “Your time is borrowed, your time has come to be replaced”. R.I.P Nu-Metal.