01 – Keys To The Kingdom 02 – All For Nothing 03 – Guilty All The Same 04 – The Summoning 05 – War 06 – Wastelands 07 – Until It’s Gone 08 – Rebellion 09 – Mark The Graves 10 – Drawbar 11 – Final Masquerade 12 – A Line In The Sand

Verdict: 7

Linkin Park - The Hunting Party

Linkin Park started out making music utilizing new media from the start. The guys in the band blended all sorts of influences into their music that was displayed in the fantastic first full length release, The Hybrid Theory took the world by storm.

But the band must have tricked them self into believing that any polished turd would cut it for the Linkin Park fans. Linkin Park, a band able to produce an album like Meteora delivered utter shit into the laps of their fans.

To even consider releasing something like A Thousand Suns and try to charge people money for it is an insult beyond my comprehension. It is perfectly OK to stretch as an artist and try to blend different styles of music but to produce a sound design album.... No that just doesn't cut it at all.

But someone in their own camp must have told Shinoda and the rest of the band that it was just about time to get their act together or kiss their fame goodbye. If you listen to the Linkin Park catalog it is strange, odd and at times an awkward listen. Linkin Park started out as a vibrant dynamic analog band that slowly has ended up sounding completely artificial. The fans has been waiting almost ten years for a new album with original real Linkin Park music.

Hunting Party will not put any old Linkin Park fan disappointed. The album has a raw real analog feel to it, the guitars are back and they even sound a bit angry...Well I guess that it's possible to feel something even if you are a millionaire. Crying by the poolside, sipping champagne. But the album contain quite a few fillers as well. Drawbar and The Summoning isn't even songs, and there are a few more that could have been left out.

The good thing is that the good songs are hungrier and better than anything Linkin Park has produced in a decade! Tracks Like Until It's Gone, War, Rebellion and Watelands are all great!

Chester Bennington seem quite happy with the result.

“We’ve collaborated with people for the first time, which was inspiring. We worked with Page Hamilton from Helmet, we worked with Rakim, we worked with Daron from System of a Down. We produced it ourselves, so Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson produced this record.

We really felt like if we need to be inspired and move in another direction.”

“I think when we got Page in, Mike had written this chorus and sang it, and his voice had this tone, and it was unlike anything I’d heard from him before,”

“And I was like, ‘Dude this is crazy, this sounds like a Helmet song! It’s cool!’ And we were like, ‘Dude, why don’t we see if we can get like Page in here?’ You know? And if that’s why the song says it’s feeling like it should be, then why don’t we just go straight to the source.”