Minutes to Midnight is a step away from traditional nu-metal beginnings for Linkin Park, signifying a change in direction and a shift in position, allowing for a political voice to assist them with their move to the next level in tangibility. But are they crawling towards acceptance on their knees, or one step closer to the world realising them for the talent that they are?

"Wake"

"Given Up"

Something heavy... I want to bounce. Chester really begins to warm up his voice up, four letter words and all dashing out to slap me round the face, but feeling out of place. I'm driving, my foot springs closer to the floor, the speed notches up and I realise that there's a reason I shouldn't listen to new music when I'm in the car - emotional states give way to adrenaline, more and more of it, and I've already got six points on my licence. Baaad idea. But a seventeen second scream does nothing to sway me. As suddenly as it comes, it's gone.

Slower, much slower. The softer side of Linkin Park, then. I feel that this track is slightly out of place, bringing me to a slightly more coherent observation of the album - Mike Shinoda made this statement when Minutes to Midnight was leaked onto the internet, saying that the track order was really important and that if people have downloaded their music, the least they could do is play it in order. Thing is, the album order is well out. Leave Out All The Rest shouldn't be here, it should be the second to last song on the album (I'd actually consider last, were it not for the fact that the last track does, in fact, work.). And I was also a bit miffed at Mike having a good old whine about people downloading it. But then, I've had the album on pre-order for a while so, there you go.

"Bleed It Out"

"Going out of my fucking mind / Filthy mouth, no excuse" seems to be offering a lack of apology for the sudden influx of swearwords that litter this album. "Half the words don't mean a thing" seems to be more of a joking side-slap to the critics who spent a lot of energy attempting to persuade the world that the songs Linkin Park created for their debut album were provided for them by their record company. And one can't help but feel almost sorry for Chester when he sing-screams "I've opened up these scars / I'll make you face this / I pulled myself so far / I'll make you face this now", seeming to suggest that if people aren't prepared to listen to them to appreciate their genuine statement, then they'll force it down their throats.

Please, don't misunderstand me - I have no problem with Linkin Park's softer side. I'd go so far as to say I quite like it - juuuust as long as it's not too overused or too soppy. They're not really meant to be soppy. Teen angst is not something that I'd really expected. But the song forms are good, and the music is emotion inducing enough, and it's not *too* soppy, so I'm OK with it. Plus, Shadow of the Day is quite a nice song (a lot less soppy than Leave Out All The Rest, anyway) and segues very nicely into What I've Done.

"What I've Done"

The military drum beat with a political lyrical content reminds me of Mosh. I don't think it's an instantly fair comparision, as the two songs and the two styles are very different, and even though this will be Linkin Park's first foray into songs with a political statement, it isn't Mike's - Fort Minor's work is littered with overt and covert political references - so he's clearly got something to say. A call to arms, if you will.

"No, no more sorrow / I've paid for your mistakes / Your time is borrowed / Your time has come to be replaced." is what people need to be hearing, the most important four lines in the album. People need to make sure that this happens - though I'm no expert on American politics and cannot say for definite that the alternative to Bush is gonna be any better, but fuck man the least they could do is find someone who knows how old America is.

Yeah, whatever. Mushy. Not a bad song, but really, I hate Valentine's Day itself and I hate the feeling that that I'm being forced to feel sorry for someone because (oh my god!) they're alone on Valentine's Day. Blah blah, fucking, blah (as Chev Chelios once said). Diddums, who gives a crap, please don't waste a song on it, Christ, teen angst again...

Listen carefully and you can hear the weird scratches that sound like someone sliding their fingers up and down the fret board of a guitar, but the instrument itself sounds like some synthesised keyboard sound. Nice effect though. Mike's singing voice is certainly not bad, and backing vocals from Chester set his tones off very nicely. The song itself is quite nice, a little soppy again, but the line "The only thing that's worse than one is none" saves it slightly for me, as does the fact that you really feel like Mike is being completely honest with you, laying his heart out (I know, I know, I've had a winge about teen angst already, what makes this different? I don't know. Maybe the opening lines, "Let me apologize to begin with / Let me apologize for what I'm about to say" just endeared my towards this track. That, and the on/off almost xylophone noise really makes me smile. The harmonising towards the back end of the song, whilst nothing spectacular, does tend to make you feel like there's something a bit more to Mike now.

At 6:24, this song is the longest on the album and, I believe, the longest that Linkin Park have put on any of their albums. The song appears to centre around the world's reaction to the devesation wrought upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. A powerful, moving piece of music that almost makes you feel the world around you being washed away, this song more than any other on the album shows how far Linkin Park can take themselves. It really couldn't sound less like the nu-metal sound that gave them their start on Hybrid Theory and continued into Meteora - "Hope decays / Generations disappear / Washed away / As a nation simply stares" gives us a powerful imagery that brings back haunting pictures of the days in New Orleans following those events. I've had criticisms levied at this track saying that it never seems to reach it's peak, that it could have done with another louder, heavier chorus-repeat at the end, to go out on a high - honestly though, after some consideration I'd have to say that's probably not really fair. It must be considered that the use of an acoustic guitar for the majority of the song, and the fact that it builds itself up enough on the back of Chester's beautiful vocals to a perfectly acceptable musical and emotional level tells more tales about the maturity of Linkin Park then any over-familiar fall back to the screaming of distorted guitars ever possibly could.

But why say it's "obvious" that this is where we were going to end up? Well, that's just it - Linkin Park have clearly set out to prove something here - that they're capable of change, and capable of providing musical entertainment that isn't just bog-standard nu-metal - they begin this album nu-metal, string in a couple of increasingly different, emotionally mature tracks (yes, those ones that I call "soppy") and end the album on a note that simply screams "take me seriously!" - and I want to, I really do, and so I do. Here's the rub though - they've put so much effort into trying to move away from what was, distinctly, their sound, that they seem to have forgotten for the most part that that made them distinct - I disagree with the critics who suggest that Linkin Park just sound like "every other nu-metal band" - they always had their own sound, their own brand, and by trying so hard to change you can't help but feel that they've lost that a little bit.

Linkin Park's third studio album, Minutes to Midnight, is released on May 14 2007 in the UK and is available in all good record stores. Not the crap ones. Sorry.