I was having this discussion with deftonesfan the other night and personally, I have to say yes. Especially with the added effect of the interludes and the transition they provide.
Hmm, toughie really. On ATS, a lot of people said it was political. LP don;t do political well AT ALL. There are occasional phrases that talk about money and war but that's about it. They should let the punk bands and RATM do political. Musically, it isn't excellent. In fact, the music itself is quite bland. And there are too many slow songs that make it a pain in the ass live. But I love the album, despite sounding negative.
Yes I think it is their best effort yet. It encompasses their electronic/rock/rap/alternative/experimental/emotional sides quite well.
For me ATS, is LP's best album so far. For me it has got the biggest consistency. All the other LP albums are very loose in their compilation, especially MTM. Minutes almost felt idiosyncraticly thrown together. Surley it has some really good - very good songs, but it's not a good "album", imo. Even if I don't like Meteora that much, it also has a releatively strong consistency, album-wise. Solely the fact, ATS-songs largely have more complex song-structures is a "++" for me. I also like the electronic-indie-pop feel. I'm a fan of this sound for over 10 years. On another note, the sequence of Burning in The Skies, WTCFM and Robot Boy, alone, is a reason to love ATS.
Yeah, its really their best in most ways. Not the most energetic album, but in every other aspect they out did themselves
To me, "A Thousand Suns" is definitely their best album so far, pending the release of this new album.
This. + my personnal opinion: I listened to Hybrid Theory yesterday after quite a long time not doing it, and I still see it as the best LP work to date. Not the most complicated, but seriously. The vocals and melodies are just perfect. Some of the guitar-riff (POA, OSC, A Place For My Head) could hype the papum. The atmosphere, the energy, the collaboration between Chester and Mike. Everything in it is just freaking well executed. + about ATS : it's also a very good record to me. However, I can see a lot of negative points in it, which is not the case with HT. One of it: ATS was made as a concept record, with interludes and all. To make it a good concept record, interludes would have to be good. That's not the case of Fallout/The Radiance/Empty Spaces IMO. Basic monotonous synth which sound the same throughout the song + robotic voice is not a good interlude (imo). Neither are cricket noises or a speech with a "tchchchchtch" sound. A band like "Enter Shikari" have what I consider to be good interludes. Pink Floyd was ridiculously great at use of weird noises and interludes . But ATS fail ont this level. Also, transition from WTCFM to Robot Boys don't flow well at all (imo). Other negatives points: the almost-stolen-from-U2 guitar in Iridescent, the muli-layered vocals on Robot Boy which don't fit Chester voice (imo) , Robot Boy melody ("Hey Joe" anyone?), the general lack of energy in the album.
It's the only album where I listen to every song on the entire record when I play it. With Hybrid Theory and Minutes To Midnight, I'll skip around and go back to certain songs and with Meteora I'll skip some songs all together. When I listen to A Thousand Suns, I very rarely pick out one track to listen to or skip and I play the full 48 minutes of outstanding music.
Personally..I think Hybrid Theory is their best album. I have to be in the mood to listen to 'A Thousand Suns' where as Hybrid Theory and Meteora they're both albums I want to sing my heart out to.
Definitely their best. I don't even listen to HT and Meteora anymore because everything's so similar. I like variety when I listen to an album, and ATS delivers on that. Also their lyrics are far better than before. And lastly, I feel that this was their most melodic album, which is the reason I think I've always loved them. Even if they put out a trip-hop disco record, I'm confident it would sound badass because of their ability to write awesome melodies. The one gripe I had had with ATS was that I thought they would go more experimental on the record based on all of the reviews, but with all of the other improvements, it is still far above their other three albums.