Monday, May 16, 2016

LINKIN-PARK-A-THON!!!!! A Thousand Suns MUSIC REVIEW

Alright, let's get this over with. No joke openings, no sweet openings...Hell, I don't think this one is even worth to have its album cover on this review...Ugh, okay fine. Since I did let Simple Plan's album cover added on that review, I might as well just do so out of goodness sake.

This is Linkin Park's....A Thousand Suns.

  
.....
*heavy sigh*

I don't hate this album. I really don't hate this album. But I am utterly disappointed with how this concept album turned out to be. It had potential concepts and ideas but it left me feeling unsatisfied, cheated, and confused by how messy and how "filler-y" the whole album was. That's why you should never went into the hype train in the first place... ...especially after they made a really epic, heart-pounding song in a film soundtrack!

Yeah, there was one song specially made for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen called "New Divide" (and as we all know, the co-operation between the franchise and Linkin Park will continue further in Dark Side of the Moon and their own custom-made G1 Soundwave paint job...sadly their music contribution for Age of Extinction is for its game only). The movie itself (now I could slightly see what's good and what's bad) was bad, but this song kicks so many asses. Personally, it captured the feel of the movie (the good ones, not include the bad ones): urgency, danger, destruction, and revival all played in my head when I listened to this song. 

Not only that, it sounds unlike any song on Minutes to Midnight, rather it reminiscent to their Hybrid Theory and Meteora musical style but improved greatly. The song brought back Joe Hahn on the turntable, adding the rumble, the echoes, the "wah ah ouh" breathing (I don't know how I could explain this sound...uuh..try to cover your mouth with your hand and then make the "kuh-" sound. After that, silent the "k-" and let the "-uh" played in your mouth. A little inaccurate but that's basically the "wah ah ouh" breathing...I guess) and the best part of the song is the break after the second chorus and before the bridge.

I don't know if that is really Brad Delson doing the manipulation to his guitar riff or Joe Hahn, but it was fantastic. Rob Bourdon's drumming is also so good to hear. I guess the drumming pattern throughout the song isn't all unique, but hearing it at the same volume as any instrument and vocal background in this song is oh so welcoming. And Chester as always, really sound great here--and it is amazingly edited too (you can tell his vocal performance is edited a bit with echoes and new layers of voice). If I ever make a Top 10 list, this would definitely be somewhere in my list.

Ahem!..Anyway, A Thousand Suns, yes...
*sigh deeply*

I was looking forward to the album--a bit hyped about it since it's a concept album and I'm a sucker for concept albums. At first, I did somehow love the album. But I might have been in denial of how disappointing it is, and also possibly because I'm being one of those hardcore fans. It could have been a really good, well-made, well thought out album with a concept of nuclear war apocalypse. And they really seemed ambitious about it, but it is the weakest album they ever made personally.

Right from the start, two instrumental songs as the introduction to the album--not a good sign. And it is also not a good sign when the first track is not as good as any first track of any album. Let's see, shall we?

The Hunting Party's "Keys To The Kingdom": Chester's screaming before we start listening to the music? Incredible way to start rocking. And another best thing about this song is that it totally sums up of what we're going to expect in the album. Rob's developed fast and heavy drumming skill, Phoenix's and Brad's raw guitar riffs, and more of Mike Shinoda's vocal involvement.

Living Things' "Lost in the Echo": Straight-up electronic before it adds a heavy rock flavour pack that makes you want to do the seizure dance. Adding up with the lyric and how it is presented, it gives you the angry and sad feel.

Minutes to Midnight's "Wake": the best progression from being static, broken and dark into this wake up call for something epic.

Meteora's "Foreword": super short, super simple, and super straight-FOREWORD to the song "Don't Stay". Unnecessary? Yes. But it is at least goes away quicker than a two-minute intro of A Thousand Suns, which also has ANOTHER instrumental track afterwards before we get to the juicy part.

Hybrid Theory's "Papercut": Electronic drum beats--makes you think, "Oh, this is going to be a hip hop thing? Ugh I though this is going to be a rock album"; then guitar riffs-- "Oh, wait...this is a rock album..I think...or maybe just a sample"; then the disc scratch-- makes you think like, "Woah, what? What? What's this? The disc scratch alongside with the guitar riffs? This is not sampling at all! What the fuck am I listening?!"; then the disc scratch goes to this quick "WOOSHH" sound--"Oh shit....RIP my ears", and  

BOOM!-- Right in the face is freaking Nu-metal, Goddammit!
 
"The Requiem" (the first track) is not an awful, bad intro, but it is so long and the sound of echoing lady makes it really, really boring. I get that they want to set us up with some kind of spacey, scary environment in our mind, but it just makes me want to skip it. Why? Because again, there's another instrumental song after the intro. Wwhhhyyyy??? Isn't it enough to have just one instrumental song to gives us the introduction? Is it because the first track was boring as hell so you want me to hear the Creator of the Nuclear Bomb talks about him being the Destroyer of Worlds with an even better music background? Seriously, if they just use "The Radiance" as the intro itself, it might gone well. I could say that it is a really great way to start off the album because that whole speech alongside with the background music really gives me the chills. But no, we have to have two instrumental songs as the introduction of the whole album, and the very first track to be long and boring while the actual first track should be the one after.

Another problem about the album is that a lot of the songs really feel like fillers. There are about 6 tracks that are short instrumental songs (3 of which have voices and echoes), 1 track is a longer one, and the rest are "sing-able" tracks...but some of these "sing-able" tracks are easily skippable. Songs like "When They Come For Me" and "Wretches and Kings" aren't really great. Even Shinoda's rap didn't flow well to my ears, and the lyrics themselves came out pretentious. Each track though has their strong points, but for most tracks, those strong points doesn't help make them listenable. Example for "When They Come For Me", I did find the last part of the song (starting with Chester's part and onward) so good and interesting. I even liked the yodeling too. But I have to wait for Shinoda to finish rapping about he is not what he is not and whatever that is "funky".

And the whole album itself is a freaking mess, especially in between. Like is there a story that Linkin Park tried to tell? Is there a beginning, middle and end here? Or is this just another album that has tracks talking about one perspective of a nuclear war? From how it is structured at the start, it really feels like they were trying to tell a story, but it didn't work because of the in between.

Here's what I get from "The Requiem" to "Burning In The Skies": a nuclear disaster happened and the whole world is laughing and crying when they notice great danger in the sky. And this cause the war in track "Empty Spaces". "When They Come For Me" is probably a soldier-at-war's changing perspective of himself and the world he is currently in. Then, there's a talk about not losing hope in "Robot Boy" but then....I got lost afterwards. But then, I got back on track after listening to another speech in "Wisdom, Justice and Love" and I thought, "Oh right! This must be the eye-opener; the closing of the nuclear war" until I listened to "The Catalyst" which came after "Iridescent" (which also makes me feel like I am on the right track) and "Fallout" (which judging by the title means "Fudge, we're not done yet!") and I was like, "Wait, what....Oh come on! Why is this song's placed here?!" Seriously, this song could have been somewhere in the middle somehow. Or hell, I don't mind if it is around the start. So why is it the second last song in the album, I don't even know. What I do know is that it breaks the whole ending to the album.

This is also incredibly confusing because it seems like Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington is playing as more than one character but there's no indication what character they are portraying as. Sometimes I also wonder if the soldier-at-war is not a soldier but actually the character Destroyer of Worlds. But Mike's voice and the Creator of the Nuclear Bomb's voice doesn't sound the same so that can't possibly it. This is a huge problem when you want to add more than one character in a story-telling concept album--if this is supposed to be that. The Black Parade only have one character that is talking (or singing) and he would mention some other character by name or with he, she, they, etc. The only side character that has ever talked or sang in the album (as far as I know) is his mother--and she at least sound different than the main character. Danger Days? Eff me~ that doesn't have any character singing or talking. We can argue that Dr. Death-defy is perhaps responsible for playing these tracks. He is like a narrator, he sets up the beginning, the middle, and the ending--but he lets the story speaks for itself. And at least, My Chemical Romance sure knows how to make it possible for us to know and understand the lore in this album through multiple music videos, promotional videos and more. And even if it end up being a messy album, at least every single track in this album is easily listenable, re-playable and sing-able without skipping (and freaking amazing)!


What did Linkin Park do in their music videos?

Well, "The Catalyst" does show the nuclear apocalypse concept by running in clouded chaos. "Burning In The Skies" shows the world seeing the apocalypse coming, which if we look back at where the track is put in the tracklist, it makes sense. This seems promising, oh but wait--what is this? What am I supposed to get from "Waiting For The End" music video?!?! It looks really cool, creepy and cryptic...but how is this relate to the whole album?

"The video also carries the themes of the artwork for their album, A Thousand Suns, with many shots of--"


No! No! Shut up, Wikipedia! That's f***ing bullshit!!!

Sure, the artwork they put up in there were damn f***ing great, but most of the artwork doesn't even relate to what the whole concept supposed to be. They're beautiful imageries, but they're meaningless if they seemed so out of place.

And lastly, the..."Iridescent" music video that was made to promote Dark Side of the Moon...You know what? I understand now. I think they made this whole album specially for the movie. They just don't want to admit it until they made this freaking music video. It all makes perfect sense. It's not the nuclear warfare that is needed to be worried about; it's freaking alien robots turning our world into their own battlefield, and we're the victims that couldn't escape from something that is out of our control. The whole speech from Oppenheimer, Mario Savio and Martin Luther King, Jr. was re-interpreted to talk about the regret of letting aliens live among us, about not being able to control the warfare between alien beings more powerful than ourselves, and about the inability to control it in the most peaceful, constructive, and equal way.

Does that make the album good?
No, it's still not! 
It's still doesn't make up for how messy and wasted here! And holy terrible mind f**k is this music video so overly-pretentious with...symbolisms that makes you think "Uh....is this an Illuminati video?!!"
....
....
Oh my God, I'm all over the place in this review... 
*covers my face and grunts*

Okay, I'm sorry I got derailed again. I know it does sound like I hate this album so much, but I am just so disappointed of it. Like really, really disappointed....but...

But A Thousand Sun has something good. There are three songs that I enjoyed listening: "Waiting For The End", "Iridescent", and "The Messenger". The coincidental thing about this set of songs? They're all almost tamed, gentle, yet they are somewhat melancholic and kind of depressing. "Waiting For The End" is such a hopeless, sad song with a slightly upbeat music yet still colors the whole track with grayness. "Iridescent" is all about facing the fact that there is no good future in all that we've done, whether what we've done is a good thing (calling for peace) or a bad thing (nuclear disaster)--and by facing the truth is to let go of it all and walk along the destined road. The Messenger screams out "when life keeps us blind, love keeps us kind", and I say "scream" not just because Chester literally scream in this one while the acoustic guitar plays--the message of stay determined and hopeful continues on but it grows weaker and weaker as the whole world becomes darker, no matter how loud the messenger screams.

In fact, the whole album is a pretty depressing album if you think about it. Possibly the most depressing album. But that's not the reason why I don't like the album. I don't like it because it is messy, it has very weak, skippable songs, and its concept is not done well enough, personally speaking. It is not the worst or the most awfully-made album, it is just the most disappointing album and the weakest album from Linkin Park.



If by chance you really love the entire album, that's great. This review is not to diss everyone who likes the album, or to mock Linkin Park. I am only speaking out the flaws that can be looked into and fixed for future albums to come. I know Linkin Park can do better than this...and I think the next two albums makes up for it, personally. But if they ever try to do another concept album again, that album will decide the fate of A Thousand Suns. To be...or not to be?
 

With that said, this album got my rating of: 2/5

Favourite Tracks: Waiting For The End, Iridescent, Messenger
Liked Tracks: Blackout, Burning In The Skies, The Catalyst
Mixed Tracks: The Radiance, Wisdom, Justice, and Love, Robot Boy, Jordana Del Muerto
Disliked Tracks: Fallout, The Requiem
Hated Tracks: When They Come For Me, Wretches and Kings, Empty Spaces

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