Linkin Park - From Zero Re-Review: I Was Wrong

Linkin Park is one of the biggest rock bands of the past 20+ years or so. For the majority of the band's history, Chester Bennington, Mike Shinoda (co-lead vocalists), Brad Delson (guitar), Joe Hahn (turntables), Dave "Phoenix" Farrell (bass), and Rob Bourdon (drums) were staples in the lineup. This lineup made 7 studio albums before Chester Bennington's tragic death in 2017. Bennington's death caused the band to go on hiatus for 7 years. That is, until they announced a surprise reunion! This new lineup includes vocalist Emily Armstrong (formerly of Dead Sara) and drummer Colin Brittain, who has done production work for artists such as Illenium. It's also worth noting that Guitarist Alex Feder is currently filling in for Brad Delson at live shows. So needless to say, this is a drastically different lineup for the band! On November 15, 2024, the band released "From Zero", their 8th studio album, and first since 2017's "One More Light".

I already did a review on this album, and if you read it, I didn't mention a whole lot of positives. In all honesty, I didn't love the album upon first listen. However, after giving it a second chance,  I discovered that I enjoyed it a lot more! In this re-review I will be going through each song track-by-track instead of a few paragraphs, that way you can get my thoughts of every song on the album!

"From Zero (Intro)" - This intro is only 22 seconds long, so I don't have a whole lot to say about it. What I will say, however, is that it starts out with a very dramatic-yet-beautiful sounding choir, and then adds an audio clip of a young boy trying to understand the meaning of the album title, which is pretty funny! After that, it abruptly cuts to "The Emptiness Machine"!

"The Emptiness Machine" - Released as the lead single for "From Zero", this is also the biggest song of the entire project, and you can definitely see why! It's a dramatic song, but it's also very high-energy. It's one of those songs that, to me, will make you feel so excited when you hear it in public! "The Emptiness Machine" gives fans their first taste of what the new lineup sounds like. Emily's vocals on this song are phenomenal and the drums feel unique. I'm glad that Emily and Colin didn't try to hard to sound like their predecessors. That, in my opinion, would be one of the worst decisions you could make when trying to fill the gap a previous member left in a band! Anyway, this song is fantastic, and in my opinion, it is already one of their best songs ever!

"Cut the Bridge" - This song has a very similar sound to "Bleed It Out" from Linkin Park's 2007 release, "Minutes to Midnight"! The style of the drums really seem to prove that the most, in my opinion. This isn't my favorite song on the album, but I do enjoy the catchyness of the chorus.  The bridge (no pun intended) of the song is pretty cool too! Aside from those two things, the song doesn't stand out all that much to me, but I don't feel the need to be as harsh on it as I was in the original review!

"Heavy Is the Crown" - Similar to "Cut the Bridge". "Heavy is the Crown" is very similar to another old Linkin Park song. In this case, it sounds like "Faint" from 2003's "Meteora". Even though it sounds so similar to "Faint" (it even has a string sample and rapping throughout it), this is probably my personal favorite song from the album! The coolest parts are the chorus and Emily's 10-second long scream! Screaming for 10-seconds without stopping is incredibly difficult, so props to her for being able to pull that off (Not to undermine Chester Bennington's 17-second long scream on "Given Up", that one is fantastic too)! The chorus is hard for me sing, but I still find it really catchy! Overall, this was a very well made track by Linkin Park!

"Over Each Other" - "Over Each Other" is probably one of the weakest songs of the album. It grew on me a little bit over time, but I still don't feel like it's that interesting. It's good, but at the same time, it doesn't really go anywhere. I feel like if it had more of a climax, it would be a lot better, and I believe it would have gotten more of a positive reception by fans and critics if that were the case!

"Casualty" - This is one of the heaviest songs from the album! Not to mention how gnarly Emily's vocals are! As a matter of fact, even Mike's vocals are pretty gnarly! While I definitely like this song more live, I still think the studio version is great! It's also really nice to hear Joe Hahn doing scratches on the turntables again! We've been needing more of that in Linkin Park for years!

"Overflow" - There seems to be some disagreement amongst fans regarding whether this song is one of the album's best or not. While there are people who don't like it that much, I think it's really cool personally. Emily's clean vocals are especially great in this track, and the echo-y drums are pretty sick too! Overall, I'd say this song is up there as one of my favorites!

"Two Faced" - "Two Faced" was the final single released before the album officially dropped! Similar to "Cut the Bridge" and "Heavy Is the Crown", this song sounds like an older track from the band. This one is very similar to "One Step Closer"! Even the lyrics in the breakdown are similar to Chester's! In the breakdown of "One Step Closer", Chester says "Shut up when I'm talking to you", and in this song's breakdown, Emily says "Stop yelling at me"! It's really funny how similar they are, but I really like both tracks regardless of that!

"Stained" - A lot of fans have said "Stained" sounds a lot like an Illenium track, and I couldn't agree more. Think about it, it really makes sense! Colin Brittain has worked for Illenium before, so no one should be all that surprised by this! In my opinion, this song would easily fit in with the other tracks on Illenium's 2023 self-titled album! I also really like that the band was willing to try something new for this track. I'd say it paid off pretty well!

"IGYEIH" - "IGYEIH" stands for "I gave you everything I had", as is stated throughout the lyrics of this song! I feel like this song has a similar vibe as "Two Faced". The only difference between the two is that this one doesn't sound as inspired by an older track. I also feel like Emily's rough vocals are more prevalent on this track! Overall, this is one of the songs I'd put in the middle if I were forced to rank it, but it is really cool!

"Good Things Go" - The final track to "From Zero" has a somewhat calmer vibe than pretty much all of the other songs on the album! Mike does some rapping, but it's still pretty mellow overall. It builds up at one point, but never gets super heavy. I really like how they chose this song to close out the album, I feel like it fits very well! What you may notice about the ending of "Good Things Go", is that the choir at the beginning of the album is heard again! I believe they designed the ending of the album to be looped with the beginning which is super cool!

This is my re-review of Linkin Park's "From Zero"! As you can see, my thoughts on the album have changed a lot since first hearing it! I definitely like it a lot more now than I did back in November! Overall, I will be giving "From Zero" a new rating of 4/5! It's got it's highs and lows, but overall for such a new lineup it's a very solid outing! I hope to see the band in Denver this fall, and I am beyond excited to hear what Linkin Park has in store for us in the future! Thanks for reading! - Elliott Dudoit