TMN A Thousand Suns Review

Discussion in 'News' started by Joeverflow, Sep 3, 2010.

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  1. #1
    Joeverflow

    Joeverflow It's all the same to me LPA Administrator

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    Australian website The Music Network have just posted a full review of A Thousand suns. You can read the article below after the jump.


    When Linkin Park's third album Minutes to Midnight dropped in 2007, the band hailed it as a great departure. It wasn't. Sure there were tweaks (less rapping, more singing, more solos) but Linkin Park’s patented DNA - tortured lyrics, crunching guitars, chest-beating choruses - was as obvious as ever.

    That great departure finally arrives with their new album A Thousand Suns. Armed with an array of samplers and synths and a noble desire to smash the blueprint, this is Linkin Park as you’ve never heard never before. Departure's the key term here for they’re bound to leave many original fans behind after this one.

    Quite obviously, A Thousand Suns is a concept album. From its title (a quote from the "Father of the Atomic Bomb", Robert Oppenheimer) to song names like The Requiem, Burning in the Skies and Fallout to the doomsday lyrics, ATS teeters on the end of nuclear war (by machines?) and ponders salvation in the face of such destruction.

    You can also tell it's a concept album because it has interludes. Lots and lots of interludes. Five in total, and that includes not one, but two intros.
    [jump][/jump]
    Track one, The Requiem, starts with desolate atmos and sparse piano. A ghostly choir starts chanting and a robot girl voice sings the refrain from the first single The Catalyst – “God bless us everyone / We're a broken people living under loaded gun”. Sounds like the start of a movie.

    It segues into The Radiance, which is mostly the audio quote from Oppenheimer’s infamous 'Destroyer of Worlds' speech after he detonated the first atomic bomb. Heavy topics, but where’s the songs?

    Ahhh here they are… track three Burning Up The Skies kicks off with a clubby electronic drum beat, a stark piano motif (henceforth known as the Apocalyptic Piano™) and hardly any guitars! You can hear fans gnashing their teeth already.

    Co-frontman Chester Benington feels more restrained than usual, although his lyrics are awash with references of ruin before launching into a chorus - “I’m swimming in the smoke of bridges I’ve burnt” – that’s not too dissimilar to past single What I’ve Done. Cue big, glacial guitars howling in the bridge, but so far it’s still very Linkin Park-y. Potential single for sure.

    Track four Empty Spaces is just crickets and distant bombs, before track five When They Come For Me throws that out the window with a jarring blast of electronic pulses, mechanical percussion and hip hop beats. Co-frontman Mike Shinoda is back on the mic and rapping (!) and even dropping some ‘motherfuckers’.

    Whoah! One minute we’re smoking bridges and lamenting life after the apocalypse and now we’re putting our hands in the air like we just don't care! Is there a bomb shelter in the house?! Who cares – robot rap party! Chester taunts ‘Come for me, come for me’ in the bridge before the tune explodes again. Sounds a lot like Shinoda’s side-project Fort Minor.

    Back to playing the Apocalyptic Piano™ on the edge of extinction for track six Robot Boy with some thunderclap drums and atmospheric keys. It’s a slower, more melodic string-laden track, with reverbed vocals singing “You say you’re not gonna fight ‘cause no one’s gonna fight for you”. Not terribly exciting this one.

    Track seven Jornado Del Muerto is another useless segue track but the following Waiting for the End shows promise with an interesting robotic beat and Shinoda rapping in a ragga style. Benington comes in on the chorus with a big, almost ballad-like chorus – “All I wanna do is treat it like it’s something new” - before another fist-pumping Shinoda shakedown.

    Older fans will welcome Blackout with Chester quickly spitting lyrics about acid rain and anarchy over a chugging distorted guitar before chewing razorblades and screaming the chorus ‘Blackout, blood in your eyes’. After a huge metal dubstep breakdown, it falls into a quiet lull starring Apocalyptic Piano™ and Benington’s auto-tweaked balladeering. The ending feels tacked on. Strange.

    Next track Wretches and Kings is a hard-hitting highlight. A monstrous breakbeat, thundering bass and freaked-out guitar explode as Shinoda reworks Public Enemy’s “bass, how low will you go?” to “To save face, how low will you go?” in this cybernetic fight track. Benington bursts into the chorus shrieking and it sounds epic.The moshpit will eat this up.

    Then it’s over to another segue Wisdom, Justice and Love and a Martin Luther King quote that slowly morphs into an evil robot voice.

    Ahhh, the Apoca-piano™ returns! Iridescent is a mid-tempo Linkin ballad aka previous hits like Leave Out All The Rest. Triple M will be relieved! Finally a track they can play. Features some of Benington’s wettest lyrics on ATS, “Do you feel cold and lost in desperation? / Remember all the sadness and frustrations and… let it go!” One of the only singable songs.

    Fallout is another interlude with Shinoda’s robotic voice singing lyrics from Burning Up The Skies. It fades into first single The Catalyst, which, despite fans fighting tooth and nail on the internet, is the best distillation of Linkin Park 2.0. Bursting forth with trance-like synths, programmed beats and a slow-burning build, it builds to a huge fist-in-the-air battle cry. If this was a film, this would be the victorious fight scene.

    And then we’re left with final track, The Messenger, where Benington swaps the Apoca-piano™ for the Apocalyptic Campfire Jam™ and an acoustic guitar. Yes, an acoustic guitar. We thought they'd all be destroyed in the nuclear fire, but no, Benington gives it a bash. Singing raw and without Autotune, he murders this song and really over-sings it. Truly painful. Think he snuck this one onto the record after the other guys had left for the day.

    Overall, A Thousand Suns is a radical shift for the band, but it’s also a very uneven one. Linkin Park has always been about the synergy of its frontmen, but this time they feel like opposing forces, pulling in different directions in pursuit of reinvention.

    As such, while there's some commanding moments (The Catalyst, Wretches and Kings), many of the tracks feel like experiments rather than fully-formed songs.

    A Thousand Suns may well be Linkin Park’s great departure, but for now, their destination still feels unclear.

    Source: TMN
     
  2. #2
    SamohtCela

    SamohtCela The Only Thing That's Worse Than One is None

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    I hate how they say "useless seuge track".
     
  3. #3
    hazuki

    hazuki Well-Known Member

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    So I guess they didn't like The Messanger?
     
  4. #4
    Spin

    Spin Chaos that defies imagination

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    And we have our first non-positive review, you knew they'd be coming.
     
  5. #5
    Jack_Farrell

    Jack_Farrell KTTK is Chester suicide-diving off a cliff naked

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    Me too. They could've said it was not to their liking, but well...
     
  6. #6
    Sønic

    Sønic Searching for the last Chaos Emerald... LPA Super Member

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    Booooooooo them. Boo.
     
  7. #7
    Polychromatic

    Polychromatic Banned

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    This made me lol. Burning Up The Skies? These guys sure had to be a black cloud.
     
  8. #8
    YouHaveAFace

    YouHaveAFace Active Member

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    lol "Burning up the Skies" :rolleyes:
     
  9. #9
    Casual D

    Casual D I WON'T BE YOUR CASUAL D. LPA Administrator

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    This review is shit. Honestly.
     
  10. #10
    hazuki

    hazuki Well-Known Member

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    I agree. Not because its a bad review, because, the way it was written is dumb.
     
  11. #11
    erasus

    erasus Well-Known Member

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    this review is the crap that crap craps :D Still there will allways be haters ...even proefessional ones ;)
     
  12. #12
    Jeff

    Jeff WORSHIP LPA Addicted VIP

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    The guy who reviewed this is a class "A" dic----quality person who deserves some respect for being honest :rolleyes:
     
  13. #13
    HypnoToad

    HypnoToad Glory to the HypnoToad! LPA VIP

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    There would be one eventually...
     
  14. #14
    thor

    thor Well-Known Member

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    i know i havent heard the album yet, but WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY WANT FROM LINKIN PARK!!!!!!!!!! no body.... and i mean NO body sounds like linkin park. play wretches and kings on the radio and it would fucking kill all the mainstream bullshit.
     
  15. #15
    Stormus08

    Stormus08 Well-Known Member

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    Regardless, I'm looking forward to some Shinoda 'MothaFuckaz'
     
  16. #16
    ivy616

    ivy616 Well-Known Member

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    Ooh, that's clever. I wish I came up with that.

    ...also "concept album!?" Ah, I am mad, I am punching wall!
     
  17. #17
    SecondCityKids

    SecondCityKids Hey John, What's Your Name Again? LPA Super Member

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    It's like he is saying the same shit over and over again about every song
     
  18. #18
    YouHaveAFace

    YouHaveAFace Active Member

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    Well at least the only bad review so far reads like it was written by a twelve-year old.
     
  19. #19
    hivoltage

    hivoltage Member

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    Sounds a bit disappointing

    This review kind of backs up my fears that the album may be overly experimental for the sake of being experimental (without direction), but I am going to reserve judgement until I hear it. The guy definitely seemed condescending and biased, so he may be completely wrong.

    The art of music is so difficult because if you are too formulaic people accuse you of being a mainstream sellout with not talent and if you are too experimental, then you are lacking direction. If you are a mainstream band like Linkin Park you are never going to get in the high favors of "elitest" critics.

    Either way, I am sure I will love the album.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2010
  20. #20
    Polychromatic

    Polychromatic Banned

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    The piano joke was lame, the album isn't full of songs that are experiments since they tie together. The Messenger was meant to have less layers.

    idiots.
     
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