Paul Travers, Kerrang!, Summer 2014
Nu-metal kings unleash their inner beasts
Linkin Park are meticulous architects. They think nothing of spending days, weeks and months constructing their towering cathedrals of sound and chipping away at their pristine sonic sculptures. The results have often been stunning, but they rarely sound unfettered, instinctive or violently visceral.
So, will someone please explain why War is exploding from the speakers like the fucking Exploited, ripped to the tits on cheap speed and laying waste to some grimy squat bar? Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda have been making noises for a while about returning to a heavier sound, but we weren't expecting this. Seriously, play this track in isolation and you'd think you were listening to the wrong band.
Not all of The Hunting Party is quite so rampant, but taken as a whole it continues Linkin Park's process of devolution. After the leftfield electronic forray of 2010's A Thousand Suns, they brought back elements of 'classic' Linkin Park on 2012's Living Things, but on this record, released two days after they played Hybrid Theory in its entirety at Download, they go beyond that seminal debut to the hardcore and metal bands that initially influenced them.
That doesn't mean that this is a simple three-chord thrash-out. There are a couple of moments where they bring back the bubbling electronica, but it's used to augment rather than dominate proceedings. Wastelands leans heavily on the rap angle but drops its beats like cluster bombs. Mark The Graves blends low-slung, sludgy riffs with sweet sugar-rushes. Lead single Guilty All The Same kicks off on a rush of raw punk guitar straight from the back of the garage, but also incorporates sonorous piano chords, those soaring melodies that Linkin Park have always done so well and jab'n'weave guest spot from New York rapper Rakim.
They've clearly been going through their little black book, with Helmet's Page Hamilton, Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello and System Of A Down's Daron Malakian also cropping up on various tracks. The latter's contributions to Rebellion is particularly thrilling - all System-style hornet guitars compounded with spiralling tribal rhythms and icy synths.
This being Linkin Park, it probably took a lot of painstaking preparation to sound so spontaneous. Even so, this works on both a cerebral and gut level, and is undoubtedly the heaviest thing they've ever done.
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