Harsh J

Linkin Park finally released their much much awaited and hyped album Minutes To Midnight, the single of which scorched the modern rock charts weeks ago.

This post is not about its release but about how I felt about the massive change they’ve done to their sound.

You can preview all 12 tracks at Last.fm’s Linkin Park Minutes To Midnight page.

Here’s the official track list from their site (With my views on each) :

• 1. Wake (1:40)

An intro. Worst of all 3 Linkin Park albums. Though the instrumental is as great as always, being Linkin Park themselves at it, the vinyl scratching sound gets me, its bloody irritating. (2.5/5)

• 2. Given Up (3:10)

A hard track. Hard cause rest stuff is soft. This one could go a hit on music channels but it just isn’t a good deep song like old Linkin Park, its more like their unfathomably-popular One Step Closer kind of hard which makes no sense at all. A good track never the less, catchy in parts. (3/5)

• 3. Leave Out All The Rest (3:18)

The best song you’ll find on the album. This song is very very emotive and well sung by Chester, and rules the entire album. Its still different however, from all old Linkin Park stuff, cause its mostly slow and other things like that, but still, you would definitely like this one if you liked the mood of Numb, In The End, etc. (5/5) (My favorite)

• 4. Bleed It Out (2:54)

A very cool song. Catchy, fast and everything nice. It will give you a feel of Hybrid Theory and Meteora in parts and the addition of chorus to the song does add a great deal of energy to it too! (4.5/5)

• 5. Shadow Of The Day (4:50)

I had to check if I wasn’t accidentally playing “The Postal Service” for this one. The track has good music, nice emotions and I just love the way Chester manages to add so much to just the word “Sun”. Nice track to set on repeat IMO. (4/5)

• 6. What I’ve Done (3:25)

You’ve heard this single before and you’ve loved it or hated it. But this is the second best track on the album and yet another favorite of mine. It didn’t top the Modern Rock Charts for no reason at all. (5/5)

• 7. Hands Held High (3:53)

There are some pretty deep and emotive verses in this one, but though its a full rap song sung by Mike most of the part, it lacks the good old Hip-Hop tune which goes well with his rap. The music’s bad, the lyrics good. (3.5/5)

• 8. No More Sorrow (3:38)

You’ll definitely love the guitars in this one and the drums at the beginning. The song has a political feel to it, and its yet another song you can find yourself humming to, or screaming to in some cases. Again a nice track to keep on repeat. (4/5)

• 9. Valentine’s Day (3:15)

A slow, soft, poppy track that makes you sleep till the end where the loud chorus wakes you up and you go “Hey! This is nice .. but only in the end!”. This song could go good on radio and sorts but nothing that you’d like to repeatedly listen to. (3/5)

• 10. In Between (3:14)

Once you hear this, you figure if Linkin Park has a new singer. No. Its Mike Shinoda rapping singing. Yeah, singing. Slowly progressing track and the music just doesn’t fit with his mostly bad singing. He sure raps a lot better than he sings. But the song has a very good lyrical depth to it. (3.5/5)

• 11. In Pieces (3:37)

It sounded like “The Postal Service” again to me. This time I really had to wait for Chester to start his voice to confirm otherwise. But the song, though another slow style thats predominant on this album, has a good feeling to it and has a small guitar solo in near end which sounds really awesome. (4/5)

• 12. The Little Things Give You Away (6:23)

Mostly a guitar solo, this is a wonderful track except at the ending. Each part of the music will bring out a different emotion in you, which is what’s wonderful about this track. The bad part is, at the end, on headphones, Mike sings into one side of the headphone and Chester on the other. Simultaneously. Eeek, that’s a bad experience. (4/5)

Overall rating - (3.5/5)

Your rating: [ratings]

[Worth giving a try before you buy but for Linkin Park fans, it is a must isn't it?]

Here’s my likes (and dislikes, after the jump)

1. Swing fast, real real fast across the free roam city.
2. Its all reality, you cant swing when there’s nothing to grapple your line onto.
3. Jump swing like he does in movies by pulling his leg up and leaping mid swing.
4. Use the building to swing faster by running along it in case you touch it.
5. Not just climb and crawl walls, leap large distances climbing it, thus faster and less irritating now than previous games.
6. Run on walls. You got to try this! You are swinging across the skyline and suddenly you go bang flat into a building. What better way than to press the required keys and set Spidey start running real fast on the walls all the way above and then continue swinging.
7. Slingshot across the city to leap very very large leaps. If you don’t know what the slingshot is, remember the thing Spider-Man does in the first movie to get to the bridge with Green Goblin from the city? Like a catapult? Yeah you can do that from select spots in the city!
8. Double web swing. Left arm’s web line attached to the left building, and the right one to the right, now swing. Awesome stability but very slow. Its like you might have seen Spider-Man do in the beginning of every episode of “Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends”.
9. Web zipping, the best and fastest way to cross multiple buildings from above them.
10. Web Yoyo. The thing you see Spider-Man do most of the times, hang upside down on a webbing, lower down creepily, kiss Mary Jane and go back again. Yeah it is lovely to spy on missions with this one.
11. A Commandos 3 like Spider-Sense. Makes the screen TV-Static-Black and the enemies red and the usable items or doorways orange when activated. Easy now to find all enemies or to find what to do to stop them.
12. Dodging attacks using Spider-Sense just got easier, cause holding its button makes time slow (Marvel Ultimate Alliance?) and gives you time and button press opportunities to dodge almost any attack.
13. Web pull all enemies mid air and defy gravity to grant them their knock-out.
14. New real Spidey style combo moves. He can shoot web bullets, he can multi-web-up several people at a time, lift them all in one go and give a nasty kick! And that’s not all, there’s more and tons more of upgrades you get along the game, like for example, a web sling kick! How cool is that? You need to play to find out.
15. ROFL Copter kicks! Punch Fury! Cyclic mid-air kicks! All fun for those rare button-mashing moments.

Read the rest of this entry »

Title explains my current condition in this 37-fing-degree-centigrade boiler of a city, Chennai, in boiler of a month, May. Got to finally cut down on 75-degrees computing and get an cooler of some sort, for both, my room and this hell-hot baby am writing this post on.

Here’s the lyrics to each track in the Minutes To Midnight album by Linkin Park (Release date: May 14th 2007)

 

• 1. Wake (1:40) [Preview] [Instrumental Intro .. No Lyrics]
• 2. Given Up Lyrics (3:10) [Preview]
• 3. Leave Out All The Rest Lyrics (3:18) [Preview]
• 4. Bleed It Out Lyrics (2:54) [Preview]
• 5. Shadow Of The Day Lyrics (4:50) [Preview]
• 6. What I’ve Done Lyrics (3:25) [Preview]
• 7. Hands Held High Lyrics (3:53) [Preview]
• 8. No More Sorrow Lyrics (3:38) [Preview]
• 9. Valentine’s Day Lyrics (3:15) [Preview]
• 10. In Between Lyrics (3:14) [Preview]
• 11. In Pieces Lyrics (3:37) [Preview]
• 12. The Little Things Give You Away Lyrics (6:23) [Preview]

 

7Digital has put up a full preview page for Linkin Park’s upcoming Minutes To Midnight album (2007). The page contains previews to all the 12 tracks as listed below!

Visit 7Digital’s Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight Page now!

You can download each track using the following tracklist / songlist I’ve made:

Click on each track’s name to download or listen to its preview in the browser…

• 1. Wake (1:40) [Preview] [Instrumental Intro .. No Lyrics]
• 2. Given Up Lyrics (3:10) [Preview]
• 3. Leave Out All The Rest Lyrics (3:18) [Preview]
• 4. Bleed It Out Lyrics (2:54) [Preview]
• 5. Shadow Of The Day Lyrics (4:50) [Preview]
• 6. What I’ve Done Lyrics (3:25) [Preview]
• 7. Hands Held High Lyrics (3:53) [Preview]
• 8. No More Sorrow Lyrics (3:38) [Preview]
• 9. Valentine’s Day Lyrics (3:15) [Preview]
• 10. In Between Lyrics (3:14) [Preview]
• 11. In Pieces Lyrics (3:37) [Preview]
• 12. The Little Things Give You Away Lyrics (6:23) [Preview]

You can also pre-order each track there for 0.87 British Pounds, or the whole album “Minutes To Midnight” for 8.77 British Pounds worth 12 tracks!

Minutes To Midnight comes out on 14th May worldwide and 15th in the USA.

I heard Minutes To Midnight - Linkin Park leaked today (May 4th, real songs) on torrents and other places.. You can head over to your favorite torrent website to give it a try. I feel they’ve gone too far … But that’s just IMO. I still have Hybrid Theory and Meteora to continue waiting for more albums