Album review: Linkin Park – The Hunting Party

The Hunting Party is the American rock band's most guitar-driven album in a decade.

Linkin Park's latest album The Hunting Party.

The Hunting Party

Linkin Park

(Warner Bros)

3 stars

Linkin Park have signalled the end of their electronic experiments of recent albums: The Hunting Party is their most guitar-driven collection of songs in a decade. In the back-to-basics opener Keys to the Kingdom, Chester Bennington is close to bursting his spleen as he screeches over Brad Delson's urgent riffs. Mike Shinoda once again plays Bennington's foil and calms things down with his trademark earnest rapping. All For Nothing illustrates time hasn't diluted the sextet's undeniable gift for an epic stadium chorus, in this instance delivered by the guest vocalist Page Hamilton from the metal band Helmet. Until It's Gone is old-school LP, its keyboard intro recalling the earlier hit Numb before the wall of guitars arrives and Bennington belts a chorus so huge you forget the mediocre lyrics. The guitars remain in the razor-sharp two-minute punk rush of War, while Wastelands packs a serious wallop, courtesy of its heavy groove. It all makes for one of the more exciting entries in the Linkin Park catalogue, a band proving that some good came from the dark days of nu-metal.