Linkin Park, the inventive American rap-rock band who wove electronica into its heavy, melodic compositions, return with their first new album in seven years, “From Zero.” It’s a reference to their earliest days — when the band was known as Xero — a reclamation of their angry and ascendant sound, and something else entirely.
It started in September. Linkin Park debuted their first new music since the 2017 death of lead singer Chester Bennington: a new song titled “The Emptiness Machine,” with new singer Emily Armstrong of the band Dead Sara and drummer Colin Brittain, joining returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn. (Shinoda and Armstrong share vocal duties.)
It was a surprising return; as AP wrote at the time, Armstrong’s performance style comfortably continuing the band’s legacy. Her full-throated vocals recalled Bennington without attempting parody. That spirit continues throughout “From Zero,” Armstrong stretching out a scream into the kind of raspy, vibrato-fake out immediately recognizable as a Bennington-ism.
In his absence, however, Shinoda takes more of the vocal lead. And in some points, it is to the band’s detriment, like on “Cut the Bridge.” Elsewhere, it’s a revisitation to “Meteora”-era LP, like on the fistful “Heavy Is the Crown.” Ultimately, he makes a fine solo leader.
More melodic moments may sound like the work of another band entirely when performed by Armstrong, like on “Over Each Other,” but that’s quickly abandoned for the nu-metal ferocity of the track that follows, “Casualty.”
It’s an easy impulse, to look for Bennington on this album. One of the most rewarding moments arrives on “Two Faced”: “I can’t hear myself think,” Armstrong speak-sings, before launching into a guttural bellow, “Stop yelling at me.” It has echoes of Linkin Park’s career-defining hits, like “One Step Closer.” The necessary reminder to the listener, then, should be that this is the same band just in the midst of a transformation. Much is intact: The album is produced by Shinoda and it sounds it; signatures of Hahn, the band’s DJ, turntablist and creative director, exist throughout.
But it is also possible the controversy surrounding Armstrong will overshadow some fans’ enjoyment of the record. Shortly after the new lineup debuted, the singer posted a statement on Instagram that many took to mean her appearance at an early court hearing for “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the rape of two women in 2023.
Shortly thereafter, Bennington’s mother, Susan Eubanks, told Rolling Stone she had no idea the band was going to continue on without her son — and that they previously said they’d give her a heads up; they did not.
For some Linkin Park fans, it is a nonstarter. For the others who will dive into “From Zero,” there are echoes of the band they loved.
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