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Living Things (New Linkin Park Album) |OT| We're gonna go listen to Linkin Park

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Xzeon

Banned
This is a very strange and bizarre album, theres way too many layers to digest on the first listen.

I loved every LP cd the second I got done listening to it, this one, it feels like im fighting to really enjoy it.

This is, just so odd, it really does sound like all their albums tossed in a blender.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
I like this album a lot more than their last two efforts, though obviously no where near as much as their earlier works. Still it's interesting and fun to listen to.
 

Xzeon

Banned
Isn't A Thousand Suns weirder?

Yeah but in a different way, that cd felt cohesive like one giant song.

So far I like ATS better, it was really strange in a good way, this is just like mashing all their albums together and making a big mess.

This cd is just all over the place, I dunno.

This album has too much MTM influence. Its like MTM mashed with ATS and a tiny bit of Meteora/Hybrid Theory thrown in at random.

Im gonna have to give this one a chance to win me over, so far Im having trouble getting into it.
 

Xzeon

Banned
Until it Breaks is the strangest song I have ever heard in my life and I think it takes best song on the album for me.

This cd is a lot to take in.
 

Tess3ract

Banned
Note: Please refrain from hate posting and ridiculing/demeaning other thread participants for listening to LP. More than a few members were probably banned because of such actions in the Burn It Down thread.

So basically if you're not being an echo chamber, don't post? That's stupid. You should be able to critically disseminate an album for good or bad.
 

Xzeon

Banned
So basically if you're not being an echo chamber, don't post? That's stupid. You should be able to critically disseminate an album for good or bad.

You wanna give a critique thats cool, but LP threads always get the 'LOL LINKIN PARK IS SHIT AND I HATE THEM YOU ALL HAVE BAD TASTE IN MUSIC' and 'I liked Linkin Park when I was 12, then I grew up and stopped liking complete shit.'

Actual comments are OK.

Trolls can gtfo.

Lies Greed Misery and When Im Gone are also really good.

The album is growing on me a lot.

Skin to Bone is also great.
 
So basically if you're not being an echo chamber, don't post? That's stupid. You should be able to critically disseminate an album for good or bad.

Criticisms are fine, I think that means don't come in and say "lolololol linkin park, won't listen" or stupid crap like that. Basically don't troll.


Anyways, yeah, Roads Untraveled, Castle Of Glass, In My Remains, Skin To Bone and Lost In The Echo are may favorites for now. I would absolutely love if both COG and RU got a chance to singles.
 
Just got done listening to the stream. Overall, I think it's a stronger album than A Thousand Suns. It seems a lot less pretentious and they've concocted a good hybrid of their old and new works.

I wish they'd cut down on the amount of instruments they're using on some of these tracks, it can be really jarring to the vocals.

At the moment none of the tracks are really standing out to me though, which is really weird for a LP album.
 
Who the fuck said this is anything like Hybrid? The first three songs are poppy as hell and suck ass and then it finally turns into the evolution from Thousand Suns on "Lies Greed and Misery". Rest of the album is excellent and is growing on me. They really throw alot at you in such a short period of time. So far "Ill Be Gone" and "Castle of Glass" are my favs along with that combo of "Tinfoil" and "Powerless" at the end.

A good, brief growth from Suns. I approve.

They did need to make more songs in the vein of "Victimized". That buildup and the drum eruption at the beginning is fan fucking tastic

They're still going on that mellowy route with less screaming which I knew was going to happen when I first heard Grey Daze ten years ago. I love it.

Double album is needed.
 

zulux21

Member
The album is a lot of fun, after listening to it a number of times I finally got a song stuck in my head, it just wasn't the one I expected.

I expected either Castle of Glass or Powerless to get stuck in my head. Instead it was In my Remains, particularly the "like an army, falling, one by one by one" part.

overall though the quality is there and reminds me once again why Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands.
 
Album is good bros.

LP's best work well, maybe not, but it's probably their best album since Meteora.

Edit:

Some songs on ATS are better than some LT songs, but ATS was so bloated by useless interludes and forced connections between songs. LT is a much more cohesive and naturally flowing album.

Also, here are some reviews

The Guardian said:
Living Things is more personal than A Thousand Suns, with underlying themes of recovery from traumatic experiences. The exception, Burn It Down, delivers an antiwar sentiment via Depeche Mode-y electro-bounce, while the similarly standout Roads Untraveled is an eerie confessional ballad. Living Things would have benefited from more of such adventure, but they still sound like a band enjoying an unexpected second life. Read More.

Entertainment Weekly said:
Linkin Park's fifth album opens with ''Lost in the Echo,'' a torrent of hate-your-parents guitars and suburban-ennui boom-bap that could have come from the group's 2000 debut. Living Things doesn't totally retreat from 2010's art-aggro detour A Thousand Suns; bits of noise-pop schizophrenia surface on late-arriving shape-shifters ''Skin to Bone'' and ''Until It Breaks.'' But what remains is a barrage of cyber-metal elbow jabs, with just enough fluffy new-wave padding to soften the onslaught. B Link
 

zulux21

Member
Album is good bros.

LP's best work well, maybe not, but it's probably their best album since Meteora.

it's hard for me to call how this one is so far. I do like the album, and it's the first time since Meteora that I liked the album on the first listen. But both Minutes to Midnight and a thousand suns really ended up growing on me, to the point where I pop those in more than Hybrid.
 

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
Didn't really like anything on a first play through, kinda grew on me the second time.

Lost in the Echos would be my favourite.

Last couple grew on me with time though.
 

Tess3ract

Banned
Haven't listened to anything by LP since like.... Meteora? I guess

I kind of like the new cd, but they're so far from the original kind of music right now. Also the hip hop part really doesn't work anymore, it feels forced in most of the songs, in that the kind of music isn't the kind of background theme to have for the hip hop segments.

They're catchy songs, not really iconic songs for the band like they used to have.
 

Jangocube

Banned
Been listening to the stream on iTunes, and, eh, it's definitely not bad, but it's not really good either. I'd give it a 6 or 7/10. Maybe it's because I don't like rap as much as I used to, or the hip hop influenced songs don't really mesh that well, I don't know. Some songs are great.

I'll Be Gone is fucking awesome though. Listened to it way too much today.
 

dot

Member
After listening to the whole album, my favorites are...

In My Remains
Burn It Down
I'll Be Gone
Castle of Glass
Powerless

Though i agree, it is an odd sounding album. I mean that in a good way.
 

Xzeon

Banned
Lost in the Echo, like that reviewer said, is the only song that sounds reminiscent of Meteora.

Victimized is more like a heavy track from MTM or ATS and is very strange, kinda wish it was longer. It also has the best rap parts on it from Shinoda.

In My Remains is the weakest song, I really dont like it.

Ill Be Gone is amazing, I just really like it a lot.

Roads Untraveled reminds me of The Little Things Give You Away from MTM but a lot better.

Until it breaks is the strangest song on the album and one of the weirdest songs ever, it kinda doesnt really belong, but somehow it sorta works in context with the rest of the album.

Lies Greed Misery again sounds more like a heavy song from MTM or ATS but with pop thrown in as well.

Burn It Down is really poppy and stands out a lot, you can tell it was the first song to be made.

Skin to Bone is really different too but I like it, I like the electronic parts, the kinda whirring guitarish sounds at the beginning.

Powerless is ok, if it wasnt for In My Remains it would be the worst song on the album.

Ive listened to this cd like 30 times now and my biggest complaint is that its very short, almost feels like an EP and not a full album.

This cd is a mash up between MTM and ATS with a very small hint of Meteora sprinkled here and there, I didnt really hear anything that sounded like Hybrid Theory at all.

Living Things has grown on me a lot, I had to really force myself to get into it, theres just too many layers and sounds to take in at once, its definitely way more experimental then ATS.

Until It Breaks, Roads Untraveled and Ill Be Gone are my fave tracks on the album as of right now.

This cd is very hard to break down and review, its so fucking complex and bizarre you could write a full review on each song.

I know the iTunes stream will be taken down soon, which has been working for me just fine I think they put up a new one later after it went up too early last time, and I will be buying it this weekend.
 

Darkatomz

Member
Finally... back from my travels.

I've listened to the album 20+ times. Skin To Bone and Until It Breaks are the only songs I don't like.

Similar to Hybrid Theory and Meteora, I probably would say that I like the first and last songs (Lost In The Echo and Powerless) the most. But if I had to pick just one of them as my favorite, I'd go with Lost In The Echo. Roads Untraveled is soso (honestly, it reminded me a lot of music from Uncharted in certain areas). Everything else is pretty damn good.

Overall, it's awesome. Better than Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns, as a whole. Can't wait for the concerts.
 

Tapiozona

Banned
Double space

Double space..

etc..

Why do you double space EVERYTHING you type? Paragraphs man, paragraphs. There's not need to make every post you make artifically long, as if each sentence is so important it deserves it's own line, by double spacing everything.
 
This is off-topic but I was legit shocked to see the disclaimer at the top of the OP

If you read the posts I linked, you'll know the type of posts that will add nothing to the discussion. For example, it's no problem to say "I don't like LP's music at all. Their music isn't complex and they rarely use guitar solos" or "I liked LP more when they were Nu-Metal, now not so much".

But posts like this are completely unnecessary and just shits on the fanbase. Xzeon explains it further:

You wanna give a critique thats cool, but LP threads always get the 'LOL LINKIN PARK IS SHIT AND I HATE THEM YOU ALL HAVE BAD TASTE IN MUSIC' and 'I liked Linkin Park when I was 12, then I grew up and stopped liking complete shit.'

Actual comments are OK.

Trolls can gtfo.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Thousand Suns was to my ears throwaway nonsense, and if this is anything even remotely the same, I'm pretty much writing the band off forever. I don't have high hopes that this is going to have anything in common with say, Hybrid Theory, though, but I wish it was, you know, the kind of good I associated with that album. It's not like the songs have to sound like HT, they just have to feel like they have some kind of cohesive direction, which MTM and ATS did not at all. It's hard to put my finger on why I hated ATS so much but I suppose the best way of describing it is saying that I felt like the band didn't seem to know what it was doing. It feels like someone who was really important in writing the songs off of the first two or even three albums left the band, even though as far as I know its the same old line up.
 
Album is already at number 1 at iTunes US.
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Darkatomz

Member
Not surprising. Like every year when they put an album out, I expect Living Things to be one of the best sellers of the year.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
After several listens, the album is great. They weren't kidding when they said that this album will sound more like their classics.
 
After several listens, the album is great. They weren't kidding when they said that this album will sound more like their classics.

Honestly, the only songs that remind me of an direct evolution of HT/Meteora are Lost in The Echoe and Tinfoil+Powerless.. The rest feel like more they were evolved from ATS with maybe a few influences from past albums.. not that its a bad thing, I loves this album.

Can't say I have a track I don't like, but I feel Victimized is too short and had a lot of potential to be a cool song, even if it continued in different directions (Those drums <3 ).. Also, the strings collaboration on I'll Be Gone is disappointing, they are basically not present in the mix.
 

j-wood

Member
You guys know what I just noticed about this CD? Not one curse word in the entire thing.

It's also the best album since Meteora, which also had no cursing.

Coincidence?
 
ATS might have a few better songs but yeah, as a whole album, LT is the best and most cohesive since Meteora. I'm also glad they ditched cursing.

Living Things currently has a metascore of 61, which is lower than ATS's 66. Kind of weird since I expected this album to get better reviews since it isn't polarizing like ATS. LT's user score (8.1) is higher than ATS' though (around 6).
 
ATS might have a few better songs but yeah, as a whole album, LT is the best and most cohesive since Meteora. I'm also glad they ditched cursing.

Living Things currently has a metascore of 61, which is lower than ATS's 66. Kind of weird since I expected this album to get better reviews since it isn't polarizing like ATS. LT's user score (8.1) is higher than ATS' though (around 6).

Probably because NME gave it a 5/10 while categorizing Castle of Glass as a country song...wut?
 

Xzeon

Banned
Why do you double space EVERYTHING you type? Paragraphs man, paragraphs. There's not need to make every post you make artifically long, as if each sentence is so important it deserves it's own line, by double spacing everything.

p

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You guys know what I just noticed about this CD? Not one curse word in the entire thing.

It's also the best album since Meteora, which also had no cursing.

Coincidence?

Ye, I remember when they made a huge deal about that 'we curse now' on MTM and now this new cd has zero curse words on it.

'Filthy mouth, no excuse'

Even wrote a lyric about it like they were bragging.
 

Toski

Member
After listening to this album on Youtube, the only song I like is Lost in the Echo. I hoped the rest of the album would be like LitE, but it wasn't.
 
Lost in the Echo is the best song they've put out in years.

But Lies Greed Misery is laughingly bad.

I'm not digging the chorus on Lost in the Echo. It could use more work instead of killing the intensity of Mike's rap. Sure, there's the breakdown but it comes too late to be effective.

Lies Greed Misery is really horrible, too. It's the antithesis of Waiting For The End.
 
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