Linkin Park's New Album 'One More Light' Has Leaked

Na na na na na na....... na na na na na......

Don't mind me.

 

I'm definitely in the middle. I really like a couple songs, but overall the album gets a "pretty good" from me.

I think THP was their worst album, and I care for none of the songs on it. On ATS and LT, I really like about 2 songs on each. On OML, I already really like Invisible and TTM, but I don't see it competing with HT, Meteora, and MTM which I love the vast majority of.. Unfortunately, because of Blackbear, I don't expect Sorry For Now to survive my long-term test, unless there's a Blackbear-less LPU demo (in which case I would have to count Primo for LT), though Halfway Right has some potential.

 

On first listen, Sorry for Now and Sharp Edges are clear standouts. Let's see how much the others will grow on me.

 

A basic blink-182's lyric ahahah

 

Anyone who knows me knows I am by no means a Linkin Park apologist. There are some fans out there who will love everything the band puts out with a passion. That's not me. There is also a good percentage of fans that will automatically hate anything new because it's not what THEY want. That is also not me.

Some context: Yes, I think the nu-metal albums Hybrid Theory and Hybrid Theory Part 2 are shit, and will willingly point out how boring the instrumentals are, and that the songs are very by the numbers, copy and paste style. Hell, we now know this is literally the case with Crawling, which has a chorus that is literally copy and pasted from another song. But I also think that those two albums were, while in my opinion not good, necessary for the band's career and journey.

The above example kinda sums up my mindset about this band in general. The effort or purpose of the album is judged separately from whether I enjoy the album, which a lot of people seem to not understand any time I voice opinions on the internet. You don't need to LIKE an album to appreciate the effort and message trying to be conveyed. I don't like 3/4 of the album LIVING THINGS, but I understand it's an album the band needed to make to reconcile what made them big (the hit single) and what is arguably their most left-field album to date (A Thousand Suns), while also bringing in new influences (folk). It falls flat for me, but I respect that the band is willing to put an effort out on that.

All of this is being written to point out something that I feel a lot of people will accuse me of when they read this: That I will praise the album purely because it's LP, or that I'll hate the album because it's "not LP". This couldn't be further from the truth. If I like the album, it's because I LIKE the album. If I hate the album, it's not because of some vendetta against the band.

So, what do I think of the album? I think it's tentatively pretty fantastic.

My second playthrough of the album was during my lunch break, and if you haven't listened to the album while driving, you really should. It's a REALLY good cruising record. I don't think it's inaccurate to call this a summer album. Even at its most somber, it's great driving music.

The tracks we had not heard prior to the leak, Nobody Can Save Me, Sorry For Now, Halfway Right, and Sharp Edges are definitely standouts, and not just because they're new. A common occurrence with Linkin Park is that the deep cuts always tend to be more compelling than the singles, and this is definitely true with One More Light. It could be argued though, that any of these tracks could be a single, and I could definitely see that happening in the future for tracks like Sorry For Now or One More Light.

It's still early on (probably my fifth playthrough), but what I can say right now is that the melodies are pretty infectious and, in a rare display, the lyrics on an LP album are actually decent and not cringeworthy. It's a very solid effort and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

The real question that I have is whether the album will age well.

Anyone who has been here for the past few album cycles know that the previous records, LIVING THINGS and The Hunting Party had very receptive audiences that soured on it within a year. I erroneously (and hilariously in hindsight) declared that first week of LT that it was almost as good as A Thousand Suns, which was a very inaccurate statement a year in. I was pretty okay with THP when that came out, but now I only listen to 1.5 of the songs on that record willingly. The fact that I recognize this behavior at least in myself means that I'm very hesitant about rating this latest effort. Hence the statement "I think it's tentatively pretty fantastic." It's great. For now. What won't change though, is that I respect the process and intent the band had with this album. That will stay constant. My opinion though after the new car smell fades... who knows?

I will check back in after a year or so and let you know if the album has dropped in standing.

Standout tracks as of this post: Nobody Can Save Me, Sorry For Now, Halfway Right, One More Light, Sharp Edges

 

As a lifelong fan who does his best to stay as unbiased as possible, this album is a huge pile of "meh" for me. Some catchy tunes, but overall just feels so generic. My favorite thing about the band is that they constantly try new things. I applaud them for continuing to experiment with OML, but it's definitely not for me and almost seems amateur at times.

I'm digging the live versions of the songs a lot more because they don't feel so heavily produced with various effects. Excited to see them in August!

Also- they should have never called this a pop album, but I guess that's an easier sell than calling it a soft rock or ballad album. I think when you say pop, people expect something more like Paramore's new album or the likes of Taylor Swift.

Edit for context: LP is my favorite band and I have enjoyed all of the previous albums. Initially despised MTM but as time has gone by I've grown to like it. From my pov, Iridescent is the worst song the band has done.

 

TL;DR: "you can make pop music, but only the way I want you to."






K.

 

I do remember you and someone in the shoutbox discussing how Living Things was Linkin Park's version of Abbey Road.

 

Sharp Edges is by far the highlight. Wow. That track is fantastic (not saying the rest are bad).

 

I must say that most of the songs have their own difference in styles even if musically some are very similar. Vocally, there is a lot of different things going on in this album and I really appreciate that the band did that.

 

Sounds like alternate Waiting For The End.

 

I've enjoyed all the songs released so far, but honestly, the remaining six (four, if you count the live debuts) are probably the best on the album.

Sorry For Now is suuuper dope, which is a nice surprise. I was kind of expecting another Invisible there, but this track is much, much stronger. I'll need a few more listens to absorb Nobody Can Save Me, but I'm really feeling that one as an opener. And, of course, Talking To Myself and One More Light are as fantastic as I'd hoped from the live versions.

 

I think this album is beautiful. All of the unreleased songs are gems. If I had one complaint it would be the instrumentation sounding similar on some songs. But honestly I love this album. Halfway right, sorry for now and sharp edges are my favorites right now.

 

Nobody Can Save Me reminds me of The Chainsmokers. Sadly. It's an okay track. Not sure why it's the first track though. Weird way to open the album.
Good Goodbye is still good. I really like this song.
Talking To Myself is really good. I like the more alt/rock feel to it.
Battle Symphony is good. Probably my 2nd favorite of the songs released ahead of time. The chorus is extremely catchy.
Invisible is my favorite of the early songs. Mike sounds great on this one.
Heavy is okay. Not great but not terrible. The beginning lyric always hits me the wrong way. I really don't know how "I don't like my mind right now" is the best they could come up with.
Sorry For Now is good and then they do what every other EDM tinged song is doing. Sounds like the chorus to the new Fall Out Boy song but with less punch. They only do it twice in the song, which is good. The chorus is good and then Chester is rapping while Mike sings which is definitely different. I like this one.
Halfway Right is okay. It's a very middling song. I don't like how slow this song (and album) is but the chorus kind of saves it from being bad. The "Na-Na-Na"s are lazy though.
One More Light is really good. I love the emotion in this one. It doesn't feel as manufactured as it does in some other songs to me.
Sharp Edges is so different it might be my favorite on the album. I think the folk sound works real well here.

Overall on my first listen I would give it a 6/10. Not ready to rank it compared to other albums on only one listen though. Some songs could grow on me.

 

Listening to this album is probably a very different experience for me compared to everyone else here - guarantee it.

Growing up, I was never into music. I never collected CDs and really only listened to the radio when in the car. When "In the End" came out, my friend made me listen to it and I really liked it. I also liked other songs that made the radio such as "Numb" and "What I've Done."

It wasn't til about 5 years ago that I even heard any other Linkin Park songs. I had just gotten itunes and was checking out each of the LP albums to see which songs were most popular. That's when I found a lot of other songs to add to a playlist (Papercut, Crawling, Breaking the Habit, Bleed it Out, Waiting for the End, Burn it Down, etc). Since I didn't closely follow the band, I didn't notice the Hunting Party came out until a little while after. I tested out all the songs and ended up liking 3 of them and thought 2 were okay.

At this point, I had a decent playlist of different types of songs and didn't really have a clue what year they came out or what album they were from. I just liked the fact that there were all different genres and sounds (hybrid, rock, electronic, rap, etc). Once I heard OML was coming out, I got bored waiting and listened to all the other songs I hadn't heard on YouTube. Long story short, I found a ton more songs I liked and now my LP playlist consists of 38 songs (pre OML).

That's what makes OML different for me. It's my first time listening to an LP album on its own. I had just imagined that each album had a variety of genres/sounds, but now I see that each album is unique and contains its own sound. After listening to the album, its somewhat disappointing to see that its all the same genre/sound (although I realized this was going to be the case over the past 6 months). However, with that being said, I like about 7 out of the 10 songs, which to me is a great success. I don't care how many songs are on an album in total (10 vs 20). All I care about is how many songs get added to my playlist and 7 from OML is tied for the most.

HT - 7
M - 6
MTM - 7
ATS - 7
LT - 6
THP - 5
OML - 7

 

I can agree with Minus. I liked The Hunting Party at first but now I think the album is overall awful and their worst album to date. I need to see if One More Light stands the test of time when it's all said and done. I personally feel that every album from Hybrid Theory to Living Things has stood the test of time.

 

Ironically, one of my favorite aspects of this album is how the guitars are used. It reminds me a lot of Wet, whom I adore.

 

My thoughts after one and a half listens or so:

Negatives first
-not a fan of the drum sounds they used; it seems like pretty much every song apart from the last two use that clicky sounding drum effect. it got really old after a while.

-couple of the songs use the same guitar power chord structure (e.g battle symphony and nobody can save me)

-instrumentation in general is kinda...lacking. not really bad per se, just could've used a little more variety imo. like the little piano part at the end of invisible was so cool, i wish they used that kinda thing for a whole song.

-songs all have the same structure for the most part; not really that much of a big deal since all their other albums are like that (excluding ATS), but it would've been cool to see them switch stuff up a bit.

-ITS TOO DAMN SHORT :'(

Random Positives
-the singing is fucking B E A U T I F U L on every song. you can really hear the passion in their voices, whereas on songs from the hunting party, they sounded pretty bored or uninterested at times.

-lyrics are a huge step up from the hunting party. sure they're not super metaphorical or complex or some shit, but lyrics don't need to be complex to be good. the whole "conversational" thing the band talked about definitely seems true. Like on Nobody Can Save Me, it seems like Chester is having a conversation with himself until he realizes he shouldnt rely on others for his problems ("nobody can save me" goes to "only i can save me").

-Chester's singing towards the end of Talking to Myself gave me 30 Seconds to Mars vibes and absolutely blew me away. Fuck.

-Sorry For Now is actually a reverse Waiting for the End (<--- which is my favorite song of all time), and the part where Chester came in and onwards gave me the same chills the ending of WFTE gives me. Fantastic song (although the weird sounds after the first chorus have to grow on me still).

-the songs sound different enough from each other to stand out but also have kind of a "core" sound that makes them fit together, ala A Thousand Suns. whereas minutes to midnight and living things felt like collections of different types of songs, OML feels like a cohesive album.

overall, i really REALLY like this one. too early to tell where it fits in my ranking of all their CD's, but every time i listen i like it more. no score because i feel like assigning a number between 1 and 10 to anything creative is fucking stupid; years worth of work and talent and passion shouldn't be measured by a single arbitrary number IMO.

its refreshing to have fun and happy sounding music from a band that's usually always so grim and gloom, to say the least.

 

I've been a huge LP fan for 17yrs and I can honestly say I love this new album. I can appreciate the new direction. I like the variety they give us. It's a very fresh feel.

 

Thoughts after my first listen of the album:

Nobody Can Save Me - It's a slightly more rock-tinged and wordy version of Battle Symphony. Copies the melody and breaks of BS
far too much for my tastes, but it's a nice enough song.

Talking To Myself - Fucking fantastic. Such a feel good song, and a classic "Linkin Park" feel to it. Chester sings very well here.
Can't help but bop your head to this one. Best replay value for me.

Sorry For Now - Really interesting music in this one. Very glitched out and satisfying to the ear. Mike's vocals are pretty darn good.
I was looking forward to this song a lot, and I'm glad to say I'm not disappointed. Chester's vocals sound too robotic and processed for my liking here. Really, really cool song though.

Halfway Right - Not a huge fan of Chester's vocals in the verses, but he kills it in the choruses. Very basic song. Pleasant sounding, but nothing special.
The "nanana" bridge and chorus is kind of cool and unique from LP. Strings are beautiful, reminiscent of Iridescent.

One More Light - Much, much nicer than I thought it'd be. Doesn't make me cry my eyes out and get super emotional like it does to so many people,
but I think it's a beautiful and somewhat poignant song. The overall sound is graceful and calming.

Sharp Edges - Enjoyable, not sure if I like it or not. Need to hear this one again before I make a judgement. It doesn't
suck though. Chester's vocal melody is interesting and pretty unusual here. Probably the weirdest, least Linkin Parkish song on the album.

This is the first Linkin Park album where I don't have that insane hype and excitement after first listen, but I'm not bummed because I expected that to happen.
Weirdly enough, I respect THP a lot yet I'll probably play this album more.

Album is nice enough. I'll listen to most of the songs again. It's not bad at all, but not special either.

6.9/10

Highlights - Talking To Myself, Sorry For Now