Do you think Brad will do any cool guitar-work on this record like In Pieces and TLTGYA? If so, how many songs do you think will contain a solo?
I don't think there will be any. Honsetly speaking, guitar solos don't really go with Linkin Park songs. The couple solos he did were good and fit in, but unless Brad or the band think that a solo will fit, it will not happen. Given the electrontic feel we've gotten so far and the track lengths, I don't see it happening. I could be wrong though...
Based on the descriptions of the songs on LIVING THINGS I highly doubt it. I feel like it would've been mentioned in at least one of the album/song reviews. That being said, in my opinion, if Brad were to place a guitar solo into one of the tracks, my money would be on VICTIMIZED since such little has been said about it. I think this time around, the guitar might be used in a more abstract way. I believe SKIN TO BONE will offer some crazy guitar stuff. Linkin Park love flipping things around, like how they used electronic sounds to substitute heavy guitars on A Thousand Suns. So maybe for LIVING THINGS, they will use guitars to create that atmospheric/psychedelic sound.
I'm going to say there's going to be one short one, like the one in What I've Done or something, but nothing exceptionally notable like In Pieces. I think if there was one, it would be in either Victimized, Skin to Bone, or Roads Untraveled.
Well you can't really tell if he's "good" with guitar solos, if you're only refereeing to his show of skills in the songs, then Brad is a terrible(or lets say basic) guitarist. If you talk about his previously work, on songs as In pieces/Burning in the skies/TLTGYA then they maybe aren't that insane as lets say Seventh Wonder, but they fit the song perfectly and sounds amazing in my opinion. And he may be a very skilled Guitar player(Like Phoenix is an amazing bass player) he might just not show it in Linkin Park because of the fact that they don't use guitar as a backbone for there songs anymore
I disagree. It's one thing to make a simple solo that goes with the song (see any Pink Floyd song ever), and a totally different thing is the lack of creativity and taste Brad has shown over and over when it comes to guitar. The guitar riff in Iridescent's bridge? Bad. The "solo" he does during the extended Faint outro live? Worse. The little tapping arrangement during the second verse of Given Up he did until last year? Absolutely cringe-worthy. Brad was a decent riff writer back when all the songs used the same power chords in the same scale, but every time he has tried to expand his limits as a guitar player (see MTM), he has been really lacking. And I don't think he could do a better solo than what he did in In Pieces, that's probably as far as he can go.