How the Breaking Point Sounds 3 Out Of 5 Stars
After an album that all but screamed "experimenting with our new found maturity," Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington have taken Linkin Park back to the basics. Lots of rap-rock hybridization, short blasts of industrialized guitar fuzz, and co-producer Rick Rubin's less is more zen-philosophy of record making. I do mean less; "Living Things" clocks in under 40 minutes without an ounce of filler. But that makes me something of a dissenter here, as I really enjoyed "A Thousand Suns" and the wild experimentation that went on with the album's suites and social commentary.
That makes "Living Things" a good, if basic, Linkin Park album. There's not much you haven't heard them do before, with two exceptions. First is "Castle of Glass," an almost folkish number that lets Mike sing without screeching. He proves he can carry a melody for a whole song without going to cookie monster vocals, and does a good job on "Roads Untraveled." Then there's the slab of noise that is "Lies Greed Misery," which comes close to being a dance-rock track and plays with the vocal track a fair amount. If you're looking for what you've expected from LP, that's here too. "Burn It Down" could be from any point in LP's timeline, and showcases what the group has always been best at; fist pumping anthems that blend hard rocking with electronic muscle.
The remainder is a mixed bag. Nothing here wallows in the sewer, nor does it rise to the level of "Meteora." However, when they sing on "Burn It Down" 'we're building it all to break it back down,' then maybe "Living Things" is the transitional album I thought "A Thousand Suns" was meant to be. Either way, it's a middling album from a band that I count as one of my guilty pleasures.
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