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Oh, the changes... We are indeed reluctant when we have to accept them.... And even more so, when it's for reasons that are beyond our comprehension (like accepting the idea of Chester Benington's death in 2017). You see, what Linkin Park has done since that fateful moment since Chester's death could have gone really wrong... Examples of bands that decided to become legendary once one of their members passed away, there aren't too many, but there are some...
Led Zeppelin, to give just one example, are a representation of staying out of the spotlight and stopping short of creating more albums and more music after the death of their drummer, the great John Bonham... Mike Shinoda, and the rest of the members of Linkin Park are not unscrupulous in wanting to keep creating more and better music within their genre. In fact, I'm a faithful supporter that the band's deceased former frontman and vocalist himself would have wanted it that way.
And they have to think of something that is too important..... These guys redefined the genre on their first album. And not only because of ‘In the end’ as a single, but also because of the magic of ‘Hybrid Theory’, the album that made all of us (or the vast majority) who are over 30 years old today, fall in love with them, without thinking about it. I may from now on speak as just another Linkin Park fan, and I'm not going to contradict or deny that I definitely am one; but that doesn't automatically mean I lose my sense of logic and objectivity.
What's more, if there's one thing that could have been fatal, and which a priori, almost all of us viewed with some suspicion, it was to replace Chester's vibrant and powerful voice with someone else. Add to that the fact that they decided to bring in a girl, practically unknown in the rock genre, let alone to Linkin Park fans. But just like Arch Enemy, Nightwish, among other bands, the bet (so to speak) was not only a total success, but brought as a result songs, and more specifically an album that is already beginning to produce sounds that remind us of ‘Meteora’ with that anger from their song named ‘Faint’...
Emily Armstrong, that's the name of the ‘anger’ and the strong character that take us, their fans, directly to the bases of Linkin Park's new metal. Where the scratches are once again part of the musical compositions and the atmospheres with drops of guttural screams inevitably and irresistibly make our skin crawl. Shinods, detail not less, returns to show his hands in a music video and the surprise is part of the astonishment. There was no warning, no marketing campaign or posts on any social network. Perhaps Linkin Park has brought back that basic, simple but powerful essence of our youth. The same essence that P.O.D (another great new metal band) called ‘The Youth of the Nation’.
