Monday, June 23, 2014


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I haven’t written much here in a long time.  Why? A lack of balance with professional and personal life.  Not between those two adversaries, but between my heart and those two unexpected partners in my demise.

These days, I think a lot and don’t post it here.  It’s too dark.  It’s too revealing.  It’s too damning.  Being in a place like this is disturbingly painful, uniquely humbling, and incredibly inspiring.  Enough about that.

This foray into this overdone, over-assimilated network of socially anti-social connection is not about my demise but about my reconnection with 14 years ago with Hybrid Theory.

This is New Music Monday; in a dark format.  The newest Linkin Park record, “The Hunting Party” is everything I needed to hear for validation of my feelings that everyone else has dismissed due to some irrationality in their own warped perspective.  One could argue that I shouldn’t be listening to this considering where I’m at in terms of mental mindspace.  But music finds me when I need it when everyone else bailed.

Linkin Park's 'The Hunting Party': Track-by-Track Review

The Hunting Party” is not pretty, happy, or polished.  This is the hammer smashed on your hand, it’s the needles piercing your most delicate skin; it’s the drill boring between your bloodshot eyeballs.  It’s the best Linkin Park record to date, in my opinion.  It’s what my lost generation gets; dark and lost no matter the fake successes posted to Facebook or superficial beauty of postage stamp neighborhoods, luxury cars and kitten videos on YouTube.

This album ratchets up the level of thrash to just below that of ‘I think I broke my neck from head banging and my ears won’t stop hemorrhaging.’  The Hunting Party,” is not only the hardest and heaviest thing they’ve ever released but it’s also their first album to pack a drum and guitar firepower assault that would actually appeal to a head banger and give them a headache. The record is an amazing concoction of punk, thrash, and hard rock.

Lyrically, the group rails against everything from the man, to the government, and to failed relationships.  Sometimes it’s just railing to be railing.  Why all the anger?  Well, Mike Shinoda was clear that he wasn’t hearing anything in music that was scratching his itch for darkness and how he was feeling.  This record is self-produced, reinvigorated and ready for a fight.  My perspective on this album does not necessarily align with what music pundits might pontificate about this release.  Check out Revolver, they will like its depth and darkness.  While Rolling Stone says it needs more electronica and synthesizers for rock radio.  This ain’t a rock radio album.  Period.

Guilty All the Same” is the first release from the album.  It’s a hard rocker with the legendary hip hop artist, Rakim, making a cameo.  It’s a great barometer of the hammering nature of the album.  The second release is “Until It’s Gone” which is sonically like previous tunes like “Numb” with the orchestration and synth work.  These succinctly summarize a great record.  But the meat is represented in tracks like “Rebellion,” “Final Masquerade,” and “A Line in the Sand.”

These are the epic songs on the album which at your heart and rip your ears.  While “Final Masquerade” is very mellow in comparison to its counterparts, it's the song which awkwardly orbits some strangely familiar feelings.

What I do believe is that the heaviness represents so many people just like me.  We don’t need to be martyrs like we used to be.  But we feel something is not ‘right’ in our lives.  Our relationships are crumbling before our very eyes, our children are growing up and away, our jobs grind us into pulp and dump us in the corporate landfill, we kill each other over whose God is more heavenly, and our government cheats us and destroys our fragile world under the guise of technology.  It feels over to us.  And we are over it.  The masquerade is over and Linkin Park sonically described it in an incredible adept and poignant categorization of life and emotion.

If you like pop country and the likes of family friendly pop nonsense radio music, I wouldn't recommend this album to you.  If you want something that will push further into the darkness only to make you feel less isolated and hopeless while making your ears hurt and your skull implode, this is it.

Watch the "Guilty All the Same" video here


Watch the "Until It's Gone" video here 

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