Somthing as far from "pop" as possible. If they continue with the electronic route, thats fine, but so long as they keep it experimental, different and creative. The "trip-hop" genre fascinates me. I'd love LP to try and tackle that if they continue with their electronic style. Something akin to Massive Attack, Team Sleep/Crosses. Really dark, glitchy stuff. If not that, Go back to the mentality they had with MTM again. Strip it all back. A band in a room playing. As raw as it gets. Basically something as creative as ATS with the MTM style/production. also... LONGER SONGS!
This. Minutes To Midnight's instrumentation with A Thousand Sun's experience.. I think it's enough already to hear electronic sounds on LIVING THINGS. its time for them to make a "FUN" record and make it also FUN to play in a live setting performance.. The band has a lot of potential.. I believe in them, they like giving unexpected surprises..
I am so prone to change my opinion when talking about LP's music.. Well not changing my opinion per se, but expanding it , there are so many good ideas around here. I wouldn't be against a more raw and organic approach to the album, I'd like to see the guys really pick up their instruments again and leave buttons and samples to Mr. Hahn. And with that said, scratching needs to be back too though, ala Don't Stay intro or With You, that stuff was sick. How about the creativeness of A Thousand Suns but with the tools of Minutes to Midnight, they had the real stuff there, they even had xylophones, triangles, whatever instrument you could make music with. And I fucking loved the MTM-era Laurel House. And yes, songs longer than 3 mins, please. I love LT but I press play and when I realize it, POWERLESS is already on. Wow I didn't notice I just said the exact same thing , I read stuff really quick and didn't process everything ha ha.
I want them to keep the electronic elements but really explore their guitar techniques. Truth be told, Living Things was far too pop for my liking. I'm not saying it was all pop, but some of the material just sounded like a continuation of MTM which I believe to be their weakest album. Something that blends together like ATS, something that makes a statement and exploring new lyrical ideas. I'm sick of hearing the words "Pain" and "Lies", it's time for them to mature a bit. They were definitly on the right track with ATS but LT was a step backwards IMO.
Definitely something more progressive and generally more complex stuff. Brad and Rob need to do more here, and in terms of an overall sound, I'm thinking something like Porcupine Tree's Deadwing would be really cool.