Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns

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If 2009 was the year of a digital revolution by music-makers and labels, 2010 will herald a return to the concept of an album rather than a selection of songs...read our review of Linkin Park's 'A Thousand Suns'

We’ve been lucky this year – Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, The National’s High Violet, Broken Bells’ self-titled debut and The Klaxons’ Surfing the Void. A Thousand Suns, unexpectedly, sits amongst that company for 2010.

Potentially a polarizing album for the legions of fans of Linkin Park - it’s not like anything before it - this is an album that has clearly had a lot of attention placed on the song-writing and production. More concept album than anything else, with Rick Rubin co-producing with Mike Shinoda (vocalist), the album delivers its bite through intelligence, rather than the band’s traditional raucous approach to songs (which it still has in spades) and over-blown videos (which they still do, unfortunately).

Opening with the atmospherics of the first two tracks The Requiem/The Radiance, leading into Burning In The Skies, the album signals its intent from the get-go. Addressing lyrical themes of war, and in particular nuclear war (where the title of the album gets its name) the album has a batch of dark, but ultimately positive tunes.

When They Come For Me has a surprising, effect-heavy rhythm with riff heavy guitars buried into the sound to deliver a strong track, Robot Boy is delivered with lush layers of synths to be the hallmark stadium-sized song.

Interspersed with vignette-type threads (such as Journada Del Muerto), the album has clearly been developed to mould a sound.  The big songs keep getting delivered – the big chorus of Waiting for The End; Wretches and Kings is a heavily hip-hop influenced top track . The Catalyst, is the least reflective of the album as a whole, and perhaps why it was the lead single.

I tried hard not to like this album. Sitting on this review, re-listening and re-writing, realizing that to even do that really is the hallmark of a great record, and definitely, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, their most mature and best to date.

Whether the band can pull it off live is another question, and if you’re lucky enough to be able to get along to the F1 in Abu Dhabi this October, you’ll find out for yourself.

LINKIN PARK - 'THE CATALYST'

Editor review

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