Length: 43:30
Released: May 15th 2007
1.) Wake
2.) Given Up
3.) Leave Out All The Rest
4.) Bleed It Out*
5.) Shadow of the Day
6.) What I’ve Done
7.) Hands Held High*
8.) No More Sorrow*
9.) Valentines Day
10.) In Between
11.) In Pieces*
12.) The Little Things Give You Away*
13.) No Roads Left*
14.) What I’ve Done (Distorted Remix)
15.) Given Up (Third Encore Session)
You can’t please everyone. Critics Bashed their last studio album ‘Meteora’ for being an ‘uglier’ rehash of the same breed as their smash success ‘Hybrid Theory’. Not really a bad thing. So then they changed, and got bashed for that too. The first half of this disk has been raped by the radio, thoroughly; but it’s the slower second half that really reaches. Minutes sports the bands first politically charged tracks: slow militant rap ‘Hands Held High’, ‘No More Sorrow’ (like a better version of ‘Given Up‘) a blatant attack on George Bush, and the hurricane Katrina inspired “The Little Things Give You Away”. Other Highlights include ‘In Pieces’ about Chester’s divorce, ‘Valentines Day’ his fathers death , and ‘In Between’ Mike Shinoda’s first attempt at normal singing on a LP record. On the downside, single ‘Shadow of the day’ rips off the U2 masterpiece ‘With or Without You’ and Chester holds a single continuous scream for over 15 agonizing seconds in ‘Given Up’. As a whole album the disk in sketchy, but the individual songs show their sound is evolving something few “Nu-Metal” bands have done.
Side notes: I saw them live in February, Chester opened ‘In pieces’ by saying “Is their anyone in here who has had someone really special in their life…who they just wish would get in a car crash and fucking die already?” and the chorus of ‘Bleed It Out’ gets annoying when the band extends the outro an extra 3 minutes.
7.7/10
*Notes incredibility
