In September, Linkin Park’s comeback single The Emptiness Machine entered the UK singles chart at No 4. You could see that as an extraordinary state of affairs: an august metal band whose lead singer died seven years ago – recently replaced with the largely unknown Emily Armstrong – gatecrashing a Top 5 that spent most of 2024 as the exclusive domain of a handful of pop and pop-dance artists, most of them too young to remember the 2000 release of Linkin Park’s debut album Hybrid Theory first-hand.
Then again, perhaps not. For one thing, the nu-metal scene that birthed them has been enjoying a resurgence in interest: quite aside from a wave of early 00s nostalgia, there’s an intriguing correlation between the genre’s feel-my-pain angst and the emotional tenor of latter-day pop. Perhaps more importantly, Linkin Park always stood slightly apart from their rap-rock peers. One popular line is that they were to nu-metal what Def Leppard were to glam metal, not just because of their vast sales figures or the expensive, radio-friendly sheen to Hybrid Theory’s sound, but because, like Def Leppard, they never bothered to conceal their pop leanings.
It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the yearning melodies of Numb or Shadow of the Day issuing from the mouth of Chris Martin, while their last album before frontman Chester Bennington’s death, One More Light, featured credits for a host of big-name songwriters and a lead single featuring pop vocalist Kiiara. And just as Joe Elliott once claimed Def Leppard’s influence was bigger on pop than metal – he has duetted with Taylor Swift – so the list of artists who have claimed Linkin Park as an influence stretches far beyond the confines of hard rock: Billie Eilish, Halsey, the Weeknd, the Chainsmokers.
The appearance of Armstong in their ranks makes Linkin Park sound even more contemporary. There are moments on From Zero where, if you heard it without knowing the artist, but were told it was a release by an edgy new pop artist who ranked Linkin Park among their influences, you’d believe it – as on the melody-foregrounding Over Each Other or the intriguing Overflow, a track that points to Linkin Park’s famously Catholic tastes by enveloping its sound in dub-influenced echo.
That said, From Zero leans far more into distorted guitars than, say, 2007’s fan-dividing Minutes to Midnight. The single Heavy Is the Crown might involve the songwriting talents of the guy who produced Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl, but the results could have slotted comfortably on to Linkin Park’s heavyweight second album, Meteora. Meanwhile, it’s clearly no accident that its poppiest moments are followed by its gnarliest, the ones that require Armstrong to unleash her most guttural vocals, as when the preposterously hook-laden Stained is replaced by IGYEIH’s mass of raw-throated accusatory shouting and spiky guitar riffs. At the outset of the hardcore-punk-paced Casualty, a male voice urges her to “get your screaming pants on” – one of the recordings of studio chat that scatter the album, there to underline that this is a fully collaborative band, rather than the remnants of a classic act who have drafted in a younger vocalist.
Linkin Park tread a line between doing something new and maintaining links to their illustrious past, and that’s probably what most people in their position would try to do. But whether most people could do it quite as successfully as From Zero does is a different matter. The melodies are grabby, the sound dynamic and remarkably punchy – the moment on Cut the Bridge where everything dies away for a second, leaving Armstrong alone, her voice roaring and momentarily dosed with psychedelic effects, defies the listener not to unleash an involuntary air-punch. It ticks all conceivable boxes a Linkin Park fan might want, without ever sounding like an exercise in box ticking.
Managing to sound refreshed and current without denying the past is impressive at this stage in their career, but perhaps Linkin Park unwittingly laid the groundwork long before Bennington died. They were always more expansive and exploratory than the bands they were lumped in with. Their choice of collaborators – Pusha T and Rakim, the Dust Brothers and Owen Pallett – suggested a band blessed with good taste in a genre where good taste was never guaranteed. They were always unafraid to take sonic risks, and another sonic risk is exactly what their comeback constitutes – one that has handsomely paid off.
From Zero is released 15 November
This week Alexis listened to
Olive Jones – Nobody Knows
Too spaced-out and clangorous to count as straightforward retro soul, Nobody Knows boasts a gorgeous vocal and a compelling weirdness around its edges.
