Courtesy of HitFix:

"After a little deliberation, Shinoda decided that he wanted us to hear the album’s first four songs in order since they set the tone of the album: “You’re going to go on a little journey... There’s a very specific vibe,” he said. Then he picked two other tracks that seemed to best represent some of the experimentation the band tried in the studio.

Album opener, “Lost In the Echo” starts big and stays big, instead of LP’s tried-and-true pattern of beginning quietly then exploding into cacophony. Shinoda raps from the start , then vocalist Chester Bennington comes in, his vocals surrounded by echo on the propulsive track. The song signals, as Shinoda pointed out at the end, that as much as the band was looking forward, it also took some of its cues from the ‘80s. Lyrically, the theme the pervades the song-- and the album--is a sense of disillusion and disappointment. “These promised are broken, defeated. Each word gets lost in the echo,” Bennington sings.

On second tune “In My Remains,” Bennington sings of fear and pain over an electronic, aggressive, full sonic landscape; discordant and clangy. It shifts to a precise, military rat-a-tat as Bennington sings “Like an Army falling, one by one.” He repeats the phrase as the tension builds and Rob Bourdon’s drumming propels everything into lockstep.
“In My Remains”

We won’t spend too much time on “Burn It Down,” since that’s the first single that you’re already hearing for yourself. But let’s just say that we can’t wait to hear some dance remixes on that song.

The next track, “Lies, Greed & Misery,” was the most innovative and captivating we heard of the six. Opening with Shinoda rapping over percolating synths and stutter steps, the song sounds like Linkin Park crossed with Skrillex crossed with M.I.A. A jagged, fuzzy keyboard bridge gives way to Bennington chanting “You Did It To Yourself,” before he starts screaming the line over and over in a hypnotic frenzy.

“Until It Breaks” starts with Shinoda rapping over a swaggering beat, surrounded by beats coming at him from all angles. The song shifts into a Kanye West-like rap thump into real instruments—strings, keys—under Bennington’s vocal as he prays for the “strength of the rising sun.” The ambient sonics grew louder and stronger as the voices succumbed to the machines.

Along with “Lies,” “Castle Of Glass” felt like the biggest game-changer. Over an almost alternative country melody, Bennington sings “Take me down to the river bank... wash the poison off my skin...show me how to be whole again.” It’s one of the most straight forward tunes that the band has done with a traditional song structure. Bennington and Shinoda sing together as their voices, and desperation, rise, “I’m on a crack in this castle of glass.”"

Excited yet?

EDIT: Even more track descriptions courtesy of LPL member Xero21! He says: "Found this one on tumblr." Review from: GoldenMixtape.

"Only half a dozen were shared with eight people in the room the music was created in. “LOST IN THE ECHO” and “IN MY REMAINS” both had incredible build ups that lead the listener to an explosion of a relay of lyrics that seemed to showcase opposing ideas. One declared “I won’t back up. I won’t back down” while the other succumbed to “wash away the worst of me.”

Next came the single “BURN IT DOWN” and my nominees for future singles, “LIES GREED MISERY” and “UNTIL IT BREAKS.” Everyone was tapping along to the single as it was familiar, but it was the other two I wanted to be played maybe one or two times more.

“LIES GREED MISERY” started off with an indie rock vibe but then as the hip hop sound LP’s synonymous for hit, they hit hard. Mike said earlier that they never wanted to fall into the niche market critics put their first two albums in, but I felt this track was a progressive look back at where they started and where they are now. Where the pissed motif in their earlier work was like an out of control teen, the anger displayed in “LIES GREED MISERY” is a mad adult who channels their anger into art.

As “UNTIL IT BREAKS” started, I thought how fitting we’re remembering 20 years since the LA Riots this week. This song reminded me of a time where rap was about something and not so called “bling bling.” The construction of the song made it sound as if it were escaping from a police radio at times. The 90′s feel is definitely something to highlight and celebrate on this portion of LIVING THINGS. Let’s hope more of that’s on the rest of the record.

Much of the record was expected and then “CASTLE OF GLASS” ended our session. Looking over my scribbled text, I can make out “Americana” and “Bayou.” Think of it as what you love about LP and throw in a pinch of folk. With Chester’s horror movie past, we might hear this one in a spooky scene soon. As it played I could imagine youths terrified and running to the pace of the song as “…take me down to the river bend” filtered through their doom; it gave off an eerie feel."

YES. YES I AM.
Lies, Greed and Misery sounds frickin' awesome, and Castle of Glass really intrigues me.

Oh my.

hell yeah

looks like a lot of rapping form mike. other than that I don't read anything which raises my excitement.

Song decriptions are always weird, as detailed they might be, you always imagine something different, it's actually funny to read them afterwards.

Funny how right when I read the song title "Lies, Greed & Misery" I thought of "No More Sorrow." Then I read the description and it sounds like there is an even stronger connection.

P.U.M.P.E.D.

I have no idea where the most appropriate place to post this would be, but I think this is a pretty noteworthy thing that hasn't been mentioned anywhere yet: Tinfoil is actually a song that dates from the A Thousand Suns recording sessions! I was going through some of my old notes on working titles/demos and stuff like that, and "Tinfoil" is one of the track titles that shows up on either the Meeting of A Thousand Suns DVD or one of the LPTV episodes from the album recording sessions. To my knowledge, this is the first time a song that didn't make one LP album wound up on another.

woah, nice find astat!

have there seriously been no other tracks from one album recording session appearing on subsequent albums...?
HT and Meteora are so similar!

I will cry with Castle Of Glass, im sure.

I can't fucking wait for In My Remains and Lies Greed Misery!!! I think Castle Of Glass sounds so amazing... I can't wait for this album.

http://goldenmixtape.wordpress.com/2012/05...ngs-sneak-peek/

here's one I found on tumblr. they must have attended the same preview session.

It just got real. I think every song sounds promising and exciting. This album may just be Linkin Park's best album.

I remember someone else mentioning this a few weeks back.

This album's going to be pretty awesome, it seems.

Can they just change the album releasing date
June 26 its waaaaay tooo faaaar man :/

I agree. June 5th/12th is the perfect release date. I thought the 19th would be too late but the 26th?

Castle of Glass is what I am looking forward to hearing the most at the moment.

Mike rapping a bunch on this album will surely bring back their older fans. Maybe for the first time in 5 years the Linkin Park fanbase will all be reunited without "ats sucks g0 meteora mannnnn!" or "A Thousand Suns is a piece of perfection, while Meteora's disc made for a good frisbee and the booklet made for some good toilet paper"

man, where'd you get that quote of me? ;D

But in all seriousness, I think you're right about the unification. Living Things should be able to please the old-school crowd looking for at least some sort of return to the HT/Meteora style, while still retaining the increased sophistication in the music found in MTM/ATS for the fans that prefer them.

Or all of us will hate it. Whichever.

Cant wait

Merged into the main post man, thanks!

Definitely some interesting notes made in some of the descriptions. Excited to see and or hear how it all goes down.

That talk about 90's feel is what pumped me most. Let's hope for more of that!

You took the words right out of my mouth

Meteora was terrible. The reason I didn't like it was simply because of the demos we got in the past three LPU Cd's. They made me realize how much better it could have been. Instead we got a carbon-copy of Hybrid Theory.

Marry me.

If you can't see the experimentation on Meteora that started leading them away from their Hybrid Theory sound, you fail. Easier to Run, Nobody's Listening, Breaking The Habit, etc. In interviews they said Meteora was the first step they took to getting out of the nu-metal sound. Yeah a good number of songs on that CD sound like that but it's not even close to a carbon-copy of Hybrid Theory and I don't see how you could argue that.

Easier to Run=Crawling
Don't Stay=One Step Closer
Somewhere I Belong=In the End
Numb=Pushing Me Away

^Just to start with.
Not to mention nearly every song following the same reeeally specific formula of:

-approximately 10-12 seconds of catchy soft instrumental
-approximately 10-12 seconds of heavy guitars
-first verse either being rapped or sung softly over the catchy instrumental
-heavy chorus delivered by Chester
-second verse exactly like first verse
-heavy chorus exactly like first chorus
-standard Linkin Park bridge around 2:00 into the song
-and then a final chorus. Maybe they might really push the boundaries with a double chorus here

The only somewhat different songs on there are, as you said, BTH and NL, but even those follow that formula almost exactly. Obviously, Meteora isn't a carbon-copy per se, but if you can't see that it was obviously their least creative output and was extremely similar to Hybrid Theory, you fail. Hence why the band has even referred to it as Hybrid Theory II.

HT and Meteora do have similar properties, but the real change came with MTM and ATS, you cannot compare any song on those two albums with prior stuff at all. Everyone knows the real change in LP came during the making of MTM.

I hate when people pull those three songs out of an eleven song album and try to say that this album was creative. "well 27 percent of the album was like uhh creative!"

Exactly. On MtM and A Thousand Suns, I can't find one pair of songs that sound alike on each respective album. Anyone who says that Meteora is a creative album is either ignorant, misinformed, or living in denial.