Linkin Park
The Hunting Party

This album by Linkin Park, while I'm writing, is still about to be released and currently streaming on iTunes. It is certainly the one that has caught my attention the most in their entire discography. Anticipated by 5 singles (three of which were released within ten days), it presents itself as the fiercest album from the sextet.

We notice it right away with the first track, "Keys To The Kingdom," which starts with Chester's voice, distorted and meaner than ever. An excellent track, damn perfect for opening this album, explosive like never before. It is followed by "All For Nothing," a track punk enough. This is also a very incisive song that contains a featuring, in my opinion quite superfluous, by Page Hamilton, who is one of my childhood idols, but here he is limited to singing the chorus that I would have expected to be more aggressive. The third track is the first single released "Guilty All The Same." The featuring (this time with Rakim) is incisive and it is noticeable, and it could be described as Rap Metal meeting Avenged Sevenfold. Certainly the highest point of the album. After a short, easily discardable interlude, ("The Summoning") starts the fastest and most aggressive song of the album, "War," which has a solo that made me doubt whether the guitarist was really Brad. An adrenaline-charged song, not recommended for fans of the LP of recent times. After this burst of hardcore punk, starts an alternative metal song called "Wastelands," the third single. We are certainly not facing the most successful episode of the album, but it manages to deliver emotions especially during the verses masterfully rapped by Mike. "Until It's Gone" is the seventh track and the second single extracted from the album. It is clearly the most "radio-friendly" and "catchy" track of the bunch and (at least in the States) it was the single most played by the radios. It may or may not appeal, I sincerely find it suitable for fans of LP who were expecting a new Living Things.

We get to track number 8, "Rebellion," which features Daron Malakian of System Of A Down on guitar. The riff is exhilarating and of clear SOAD origins. One of the highlights of the album that finds the moment of maximum tension in the breakdown where Chester screams "We lost before the start." The ninth song of the platter arrives, "Mark the Graves," which contains hard riffs and melodic singing, a formula already experimented several times in the past by the American band, but here, at least for me, it fails to fully hit the mark. We have reached the song I was most looking forward to hearing on this album, "Drawbar," which features the legendary Tom Morello. It is an enjoyable instrumental song, nothing more, and certainly did not require Tom's presence. We thus approach with a bitter taste to the fifth single "Final Masquerade," another radio-friendly song but not like "Until It's Gone." A great song, thanks especially to the drums that remind me a lot of the Deftones. The last track of the album is "A Line In The Sand," an excellent way to close an album like this, aggressive but not too much, and with a mastery of their instruments that had never distinguished the band before.