Pretty much agree about the songs all being decent to good enough for a comeback album. The HITC verses definitely feel like Mike had them in stock just in case he had to make some vague motivation raps for a game/movie, but judging by the lyrics/verses we can see for Cut The Bridge and Good Things Go’s bridge (those look like rap-structured lyrics), it does seem these will be the weakest Mike raps on the album.
I've been trying to avoid looking at any other lyrics. These three songs are the only ones I'm planning to spoil as that will still leave 7 songs and a short intro track for me to experience fresh.
Well, as others said, this definitely feels new for Linkin Park, which is great. But yeah, they could've done more with their ideas, even in case it was deliberately designed as a radio single. (Which it feels like - I can imagine this one getting great rotation on German radio ) But is it just me, or are the drums kinda lacking in the last section beginning at 2:17? Feels underwhelming after the big drums and beats in the first half.
Honestly, I think for all intents and purposes, this is an album designed to have tracks to mine with for live performances so they have some tracks that were designed for Emily to sing live. Due to Linkin Park's already packed live setlist, this necessitated the tracks all being fairly short. It also means that there's less room to be fully expressive, since the album has a lot to prove and provide in that area. As someone who likes LP's weirder shots, it basically means I'm going to have to wait for the next record to fully gel with this new era. I like everything I've heard so far; but this is basically going to be an album of radio singles (and radio singles that feel like radio edits of longer songs). I think that's partially why it's so short. I wouldn't be shocked if we got some LPU drops and some of these tracks were like 4 minutes long once. Honestly it just feels bad to have two short records back to back, 7 years between one another. I'm sure I'll like it; I just hope they'll go back into the studio sooner rather than later.
The song is very catchy and Emily does really well vocally. THAT BEING SAID, here are my issues/gripes (not really but for the lack of better terms): 1. I wanted more soft vocals from her. Like the way she starts the chorus post bridge. I was hoping the song would've been more of that. I think we saw glimpses of it during her live performances, so I was really thinking we'd get a song of that. 2. I think what truly makes this NOT sound like a Linkin Park track is the fact that there's nothing tying us to the song vocally that we are well versed with. I think if Mike had a random lyric in this, it would've made it feel more "at home" as a Linkin Park song. But then again, that's LP in a nutshell. Doing the total opposite of what you can expect. So I guess in that regard, it was a very Linkin Park song lol. Props to Joe for the video. His style has evolved a lot since the last LP video he did before Chester passed. I think it was Until Its Gone. His videos for this album have been top notch. The twist at the end was fantastic. Its a great song. But I can see why THIS is the song people will find hardest to get into. But hey, wouldn't be a LP song without people complaining
That's a good point. In the end, it is the very first Linkin Park song (excluding LPU demos) not to include Chester or Mike on vocals. That alone will weird out some people, and it is understandable. I am glad the band was brave enough to go for it now. TEM was an ideal gentle introduction - starting the comeback and the album with Mike vocals is genius - but this is an entirely new era for the band, and I think rooting it from the get go in a strong lead presence of Emily is a good thing
Actually, I think it's more likely to happen now. I don't think he likes singing live so if he doesn't tour that isn't a problem.
Considering how top tier The Emptiness Machine and Heavy Is the Crown are, this one is quite disappointing to me. I saw somebody make a comparison to PVRIS which is one of my favorite bands; to me this song is nowhere near as interesting (either melodically, lyrically, or production-wise) as really any PVRIS song. Emily's voice is quite boring in this; what sets her apart in general is the distinct rasp in her voice that I don't hear from many other singers, and in this song there is none of that. I would much much prefer this track with Mike singing (his voice is notoriously plain, but I personally love it, Mike is one of my favorite vocalists). On top of that, the "over each other" line is repeated a little too many times for my liking. The lack of any lead vocals from Chester OR Mike (or even Brad, despite him only singing on one LP song) makes this really not feel like Linkin Park, and to be honest I don't think this song is single material at all. That being said as a standalone song (without considering it in context of Linkin Park's discography) it's quite nice, a solid 7/10.
Basically a mid pop-rock song. Hard to hate, hard to love (and indeed, no one here is showing either emotion). To me it sounds like it was written precisely as a single. If the song were great, I wouldn't mind.
I've listened to the song more times and I just love it. It just kept growing on me. I'm not a ranking person so I won't go into saying which songs of the 3 we've got so far I like the most. I think the band is doing everything right so far considering the circumstances. Like it was said before, TEM was such a perfect introduction not just for the energy but the way Emily comes in. We first got a familiar face, vocal and melodies and then boom 2nd verse she comes in. Then HITC gives us something a bit unexpected, like "you weren't sure she could cut it then? Now check this out", everyone got floored with that long scream. And now that those things are out of the way, they give us a song with her vocals as the only lead. I understand the point Elaine is making and I find a lot of value in it, but I don't think the band wrote this album thinking of it as "radio singles"; when the music was in the making they didn't even know they were a band, so it's unlikely they even thought about fitting songs on setlists or anything like that. To me, the songs being on the shorter side kind of suggests that it's just the result of those "sessions" with friends, like, them just getting creative with no pressures, no timelines, no label constraints, no nothing. They just didn't have a "need" to expand or to delve deeper than what they felt at the moment, they didn't approach it as a creative challenge (i.e. like MTM or ATS) but just a "let's see where this takes us". I'm not saying that this wasn't a challenge in and of itself (hello, they're literally working with a new singer and drummer), but in the sense that it came from a place of "I just want to do what I love again, I don't care if it's 'good' or not". When the guys speak, you can feel that gratitude and the vibe that they're not taking this for granted, they're just happy to have the chance once again to be together and make music. Can't wait for listen to the rest.
I really like this perspective, and I think it is a fair way to look at this cycle. Probably, the band was able to give a bit of an intent to the album when selecting the tracklist for it. But otherwise, this is a process that happened in such an organic way - for a long time, there was not even "Linkin Park" in the equation - that I find it hard to assign it a calculated meaning. As they said, the music brought back the band into existence, not the other way