Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight

Minutes to Midnight is to Linkin Park as a finger painting is to a pre-school kid. They put a lot of effort into it, and when it’s finished, they run to you, presenting it to you with a beaming face. “I made it for you,” they say. Of course, you smile a big smile, say “thank you so much,” hug them, and hang it on the refrigerator. But part of you is saying, “it’s just a bunch of smears of badly mixed color on crumpled construction paper.” The artist is so incredibly proud of it, but from a completely objective standpoint, it kinda sucks. That’s what I think of Minutes to Midnight; it kinda sucks.

Just kinda, though. Linkin Park has a few brilliant moments on here, but mostly when they are staying conventional, not when they’re exploring unfamiliar soundscapes, which they do a lot of on this album. Yet for all their creativity and branching out, they’re sticking alarmingly close to home. “Leave Out All the Rest” sounds a lot like “Breaking the Habit.” “Bleed It Out” is the new “Faint.” “What I’ve Done” has strong echoes of “In the End.” They’re not just recycling old material, mind you. If they were, I’d be a lot more disgusted with the album than I am. But I think that they’re so entrenched in their particular style that it’s impossible to get away from, even when they try really hard.

And try they do. From their choice of producers, I’d say they’re being pretty inventive. Rick Rubin has produced some diverse material in the past, from Run DMC to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to System of a Down. I have a feeling his work with the Beastie Boys is the reason he got the chair for Minutes to Midnight, since they represent part of what Linkin Park is striving for: white boy hip-hop, a mix of suburbia and the streets.

The opening track, “Wake,” suggests pretty epic and classic-rock things to come, which the album doesn’t deliver on. It feels like a fragment of a good song, but it’s a really small fragment. The song that follows, “Given Up,” was a very large disappointment to me. Throughout the early 2000s, Linkin Park was a unique bright spot among a literal sea of rapcore bands, all of which spouted profanity like it was going out of style. I’m not against profanity as a rule, but using it with as much frequency as the rapcore movement did shows a vast lack of originality. Linkin Park was different because they didn’t use any profanity; not a single objectionable word. Alas, those days are over, as the f-word pops up on multiple songs, “Given Up” being the first. As I said, I have no problem with profanity being used in its place, but I’m sad at seeing what made Linkin Park stand out fall by the wayside. Oh, and apart from the swearing, “Given Up” is a clunky and bad attempt at a classic rock groove.

“Bleed It Out,” the second single, feels like another fragment as the song seems unfinished. The high-octane energy is cool, but the melody quickly gets grating. Then there’s “Shadow of the Day,” which is haunting, melodic, mature, and so completely NOT Linkin Park. It sounds more like Snow Patrol temporarily changed their name or something. It’s great, but seems very out of place. “Hands Held High” shows some understanding of the current world climate, but the rhetoric it presents, while applicable, sounds exactly like what we’ve heard from a million other musicians who hate Bush and the war. It’s become so clichéd to include some political element in your record nowadays, and I’m getting pretty sick of it.

Linkin Park show their rather obvious Metallica influence on “No More Sorrow,” with some splendid results. And “The Little Things Give You Away” finally gives a little of that epic-ness that we were promised on “Wake,” but it feels forced and incompetent. They score points for trying, but they should just stick to time signatures they’re comfortable playing.

Minutes to Midnight, while having one of the coolest album titles in recent memory, is a disappointing affair, and shows that change is not exactly the same thing as growth. It’s kinda like a college girl who’s out from under daddy’s watchful eye for the first time and decides to try lesbianism. In most cases, it’s just a phase, Minutes to Midnight included. This album was so delayed, and Linkin Park spent so much time and energy on it, that I was expecting something a lot more earth-shaking. A for effort, guys, but how’s about you play “One Step Closer” for us one more time?

Prime Cuts:
Shadow of the Day
No More Sorrow

22 Rating: -4

Anberlin - Cities

The climate in music today, while better than it was in that 4 year period between 1998 and 2001, isn’t ruled by any particular genre, but rather by individuals having a somewhat wide array of tastes. People are a little into a lot of music, rather than a lot into a little. Consequentially, individual genres tend to be a little more watered-down and general, as the average music listener can’t handle things going very deep, mostly because they don’t have the time to devote to a particular genre.

So isn’t it great to see a band like Anberlin that’s taking the general and doing grand things with it? A music aficionado like myself thought that excellence of this caliber was only achievable by bands seasoned in their genre, not upstart pop-punk bands who look pretty. But Anberlin reveals a vast understanding of what makes rock and roll great, while still staying very accessible.

Their third album, Cities, continues their musical maturation, if a bit slowly. When I first heard Never Take Friendship Personal, I knew right away that this was a band of a different stripe than the Panic! at the Discos or Fall Out Boys. They fit in nicely with the aforementioned groups, but stand above them, as if called up to a higher place. The intro to the album suggests a more epic feel than we’re used to, and the first real song, “Godspeed,” is the most frenetic and excited song on here, and indeed that the band has ever done. The high-octane energy doesn’t stop till we’re about a third of the way through, however, and perhaps a more modulated approach would have been better. Still, though, “Adelaide” and “A Whisper and a Clamor” are great and catchy songs, especially the latter.

Then Anberlin shows how much they have grown with “The Unwinding Cable Car,” a delicate acoustic song with a fantastic vocal part. The only “slow and sensitive” material on their previous album was “the symphony of (blasé),” a track that while nice, seemed inappropriate between two high-energy songs. Now, they have learned how to make a quiet song that’s both powerful and doomy while still being pretty, and is not saccharine or clichéd.

The second half of the record loses a bit of steam. “There is No Mathematics to Love and Loss” is interesting, but lacks a compelling melody. “Hello Alone” seems like single-worthy material, but actually got old pretty quickly. I definitely like Anberlin’s experimentations with the synthesizer, though, as on “Mathematics” and “Reclusion.” The synth, in this day and age, is only used really well by progressive rock groups; in other places, it seems like a hammy 80s throwback. But Anberlin use it in a subtle way that isn’t extravagant.

Then there is the final track, simply titled “(*fin).” It’s a little frustrating that the best song on the album doesn’t have a real title. This song reaches such heights of epic-ness and melancholy that it does more than just pull at the heartstrings. The acoustic opening (which lasts two and a half minutes) features a great melody and heartfelt vocal delivery, making it a beautifully despairing song. Then, the song instantly escalates into a full-on epic rock song, complete with a boy’s choir intoning a chorus of such marvelous beauty. Clocking in at just under 9 minutes, everything about “(*fin),” from its arrangement on down to its production, make it the BEST song to come out this year.

Cities demonstrates that music can be exciting, deep, and soul-enriching, while still being poppy and accessible. It also demonstrates that Anberlin is only getting better with years.

Prime Cuts:
(*fin)
The Unwinding Cable Car
A Whisper and a Clamor
Godspeed

22 Rating: 14