Linkin Park
Meteora

THE REVIEW

"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"

Maybe it's because of my "mid life age" and the desire to go back to being a kid shaking my head with teenager bands like Linkin Park, or maybe because their music reminds me of the cartoons that filled my adolescent dreams like Goldrake, Gundam, Captain Harlock, Tekaman, etc., or maybe I've been numbed listening to technologically refined sounds that as soon as I hear a big guitar and a guy screaming I perk up my ears. Maybe I've lost the point... basically, I like them.

I bought this album finding it in a store at a price that made me say: "they've marked it wrong, maybe I’ll try my luck at the checkout".

At first listen, it's really disappointing. EKKEDDUEKOGLIONI, it's always the same: they start slow with little keyboards and calm sounds. Then the break with 25 overdubbed distorted guitars that make the building shake (I'd like to take this opportunity to greet the patient neighbors). Then, after the chorus, everything becomes calm and melodic again until the next power chord.

A formula already very well known. The band presents the usual formation with two vocalists, Mike and Chester, one "singer" and the other "shouter", a guitarist Brad, a bassist Phoenix, a drummer Rob, and a DJ/sampler Joe.

On further listens, the album seems to flow better, maybe because you get used to it or start to recognize the tracks or passages.

The single "Somewhere I Belong" is one of the less interesting tracks on the album, absolutely identical to the previous "Hybrid Theory". Track 2, "Don't Stay", is prettier, more incisive in the "full power" parts and less whiny in the melodic parts. It starts with a beat tempo overlapped by a nice guitar that doesn't stop even in the melodic parts. A song ready for "Matrix Reloaded".

It ends with the curse:

"I don't need you anymore
I don't want to be ignored
I don't need one more day
Of you wasting me away"

Definitely the best track on the album.

I'd also like to mention track 4, "Lying From You", then "Hit The Floor", "Figure.09", and the closing "Numb".

Track 11 is really awful. By the third listen, I skipped it. It seems to be the next single to capture teenage girls who listen to Kelly Rowlands or Eminem. A drop in what little style the album has.

For nodding your head up and down. And nothing more.