Genre: Pop
(Sony Music)
Reviewer: Tracie Yeo
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A Thousand Suns is a thousand miles different from anything you've heard from Linkin Park. It seems that Linkin Park have now moved on to global music. You can hear ethnic drum beats, raggae, traditional instrumentals, and chanting in foreign languages. It certainly seemed to me like all the band members had went off to India, and found religion.
It sounded all peaceful and worldly the first few tracks. Opening with The Requiem, you're greeted with an eerie girls voice (which in fact is Mike Shinoda's voice electronically edited) tauntingly singing, “God save us everyone, we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns...” The theme of the track, and most of the album took excerpts and ideals from Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. The next track, The Radiance was a 45 second reading of a quote from Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
With Burning In The Skies, you're finally presented with a full song. It was melodic, and almost Zen for a band like Linkin Park. No screaming, no rapping, no electric guitar screeching. When They Come For Me is rapped on top of a catchy tribal drum beat. Now this is all very strange, almost unrecognizable for Linkin Park, until you pay attention to the lyrics. From what I understand, it sounds like a lot of self loath and hate towards mankind. And it is very, very hard to not miss the never ending profanities either. Not so Zen afterall. When the music seems to point towards a more peaceful side of the band, the lyrics seem to project a whole lot of rage.
Finally, reaching the end of the album you hear a little more familiarity. Blackout sounds a little more like their previous albums. You finally hear the familiar T-Rex screeching from Chester. After that, you get some gangster rap in Wretches And Kings, what sounds to be Optimus Prime quoting Martin Luther King in Wisdom, Justice, And Love, and then closing with an acoustic tune about love in The Messanger. How very complicated.
There is no saying what the general public will think of this album. You'll either love it with a passion, or hate it with a passion. Some people get the message in the album's theme, some might even call it genius. If you are sick of Linkin Park's same old screaming and rapping and screaming, you might also enjoy the change. Personally, I do not like the change. I actually think Linkin Park was awesome as they previously were. I do think they are trying to make some changes in style by producing a worldly, conceptual album. But why must worldly and conceptual always be accompanied with boring and weird?
It sounded all peaceful and worldly the first few tracks. Opening with The Requiem, you're greeted with an eerie girls voice (which in fact is Mike Shinoda's voice electronically edited) tauntingly singing, “God save us everyone, we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns...” The theme of the track, and most of the album took excerpts and ideals from Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. The next track, The Radiance was a 45 second reading of a quote from Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
With Burning In The Skies, you're finally presented with a full song. It was melodic, and almost Zen for a band like Linkin Park. No screaming, no rapping, no electric guitar screeching. When They Come For Me is rapped on top of a catchy tribal drum beat. Now this is all very strange, almost unrecognizable for Linkin Park, until you pay attention to the lyrics. From what I understand, it sounds like a lot of self loath and hate towards mankind. And it is very, very hard to not miss the never ending profanities either. Not so Zen afterall. When the music seems to point towards a more peaceful side of the band, the lyrics seem to project a whole lot of rage.
Finally, reaching the end of the album you hear a little more familiarity. Blackout sounds a little more like their previous albums. You finally hear the familiar T-Rex screeching from Chester. After that, you get some gangster rap in Wretches And Kings, what sounds to be Optimus Prime quoting Martin Luther King in Wisdom, Justice, And Love, and then closing with an acoustic tune about love in The Messanger. How very complicated.
There is no saying what the general public will think of this album. You'll either love it with a passion, or hate it with a passion. Some people get the message in the album's theme, some might even call it genius. If you are sick of Linkin Park's same old screaming and rapping and screaming, you might also enjoy the change. Personally, I do not like the change. I actually think Linkin Park was awesome as they previously were. I do think they are trying to make some changes in style by producing a worldly, conceptual album. But why must worldly and conceptual always be accompanied with boring and weird?
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