For a band attuned to the act of survival, ‘The Hunting Party’ is a bold album title. Linkin Park are one of nu-metal’s few genuine success stories, having evolved from the rap-rock riffage of their debut into a group capable of producing arena-shaking anthems and epic electronica.
So, here we find them on the attack, with the gleam of modern rock their intended target. Rick Rubin has stepped away, leaving guitarist Brad Delson to join Mike Shinoda on production duties, and Linkin Park have endeavoured to hit hard again. It’s “fucking crazy the whole time,” according to Chester Bennington's recent chat with Rolling Stone.
The return of Bennington’s throat-stripping scream is one of the record’s crowd-pleasing cards, but he’s not being entirely truthful. As Shinoda has admitted previously, this is a heavy record viewed through the prism of Linkin Park as an institution.
For a neat distillation of this, look no further than the opening 90 seconds of the album. From Bennington’s scorched-earth yell, Linkin Park plunge into a thunderous riff and some hardcore-indebted drums before an abrupt turn into soaring melancholia. Then, there’s a short wait for the first of Shinoda’s signature crossover verses.
All For Nothing, which shines a spotlight on Helmet’s Page Hamilton, and the Rakim-featuring Guilty All The Same are similarly formulaic, leaving War to shake things up. Here Rob Bourdon continues to have tremendous fun with the record’s hardcore aspirations, pummelling his kit in support to Bennington’s feral vocals.
The sheen of previous efforts has also been largely scrubbed away, which works nicely for War but leaves a scuzzy edge to Delson’s guitars and a puzzling lack of definition elsewhere. There are riffs here that should thunder into your chest, but they aren’t able to build up the requisite steam.
The same is, unfortunately, true of the album’s second half. Until It’s Gone is Linkin Park by numbers - the opening keys could belong to no other band - while DaronMalakian and Tom Morello’s guest spots yield two if its least effective cuts. Rebellion, on which Malakian is unmistakable, is a garbled mess, while Drawbar is an instrumental that doesn’t extend beyond inconsequential filler.
It’s hard to fault the intent behind ‘The Hunting Party’. Shinoda is absolutely right in his assertion that modern rock is in a rut, but the solution is not to have his band play at being Black Flag. There are good songs here, buried beneath the weight of an idea.
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