Reviews in Brief: Linkin Park's Meteora

A young friend of mine just the other day said that Linkin Park managed to bring hip-hop and metal back to hard rock I think I'd add punk and maybe even goth metal to that group. Meteora is the most consistently good album of theirs I've run across so far.

I can't say that I like the entire collection, nor that I think the entire collection is consistently good. And I'll readily admit it took me a while to get figure out what they were doing. The song that first drew me to them was "Breaking the Habit," which as usual I found as the sound track to a yaoi AMV on YouTube. I went looking for the CD.

The first cut on this group that serves as a good example of what they are doing is "Somewhere I Belong." It's a fairly simple combination of metal, rap, and hard rock that starts to develop that kind of synergy between the elements that makes a good song. It gives a bare hint of what Chester Bennington's vocals can do, and the wall of sound behind him pushes the lyrics -- which are honest and poignant -- right at you. "Easier to Run" has my vote as one of the two best songs on the disc, and to be honest, it wasn't an easy call. In fact, that one leads into a long sequence of very strong songs that occupies the last half of the disc. "Faint," "Figure.09," "Breaking the Habit," "Nobody's Listening," and "Numb" are all, now that I've gotten used to the idiom, very good.

I think one reason I find Linkin Park appealing is, believe it or not, the lyrics. I'm not one to be a stickler for lyrics that make sense in rock music, but these do, consistently and with a solid punch: they're songs about being young and angry (and man, I remember those days very well). Take "Easier to Run":

It's easier to run
replacing this pain with something numb
it's so much easier to go
than face all this pain here all alone.

I remember feeling like that, way too often. And in this song, all the elements come together: the spoken portions suddenly include two voices, but one of them is singing in monotone when the melody come in. And Bennington shows just how flexible a singer he is in this one -- the raw screaming gives way to a lyrical line delivered with a great deal of expressiveness.

This is not "cool" music -- it's not distanced, it's not ironic -- at least not self-consciously so -- it's flat out teenage angst on a very deep level, with no apologies and no posing. I think it's the combination of honesty and artistry on this album that draws me. And it seems to be a characteristic of the band overall.

It's really easier to let you see/hear it. Here's the official music video from "Breaking the Habit," which I've just found and which is terrific:



And since "Breaking the Habit" is not typical of Linkin Park, here's an AMV of "Easier to Run." The anime is Kingdom Hearts.



A note: Meteora is an enhanced CD that comes with a note that some computers may not be able to read the enhanced portions. My computer can't read any of it, which is a pity. If I manage to overcome that, I'll update this review.