A report from a listening session hosted by Mike at MSR Studios in NYC:
I was at a listening session hosted by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park at MSR Studios over on West 48th Street in NYC.
He played 5 of the 12 songs that will be on The Hunting Party album, now with a TBA release date later this summer. The band is still in the mixing stages on all and final recording stages on the rest. (“Guilty All The Same” is the first single, and dare I say, tamer than what these tunes are like!) The 5 songs, “Keys To The Kingdom,” “The Wastelands,” “Until It’s Gone,” “All For Nothing” (featuring Paige Hamilton of Helmet!) and “Rebellion” (featuring Daron Malakian of System Of A Down) were all still unmixed, but every one sounded great! The band self-produced except for one of the tunes (I think it was “The Wastelands,” which was co-produced by Warner Bros Records president and A&R chief Rob Cavallo.)
I have to say, each song was better than the next, they are all extremely heavy, and as Mike said, some may even sound like prequels to their first album, Hybrid Theory. As I said to Mike, after all the “Rock Is Dead” critics and naysayers out there trying to forecast the death of active rock radio and its music, this album will totally pour cold water all over those notions and prove to the industry is it CLEARLY NOT DEAD! This record has BALLS! And now one of the world’s biggest & most popular bands is making a statement to support the music they love. The guitars are smoking, it was all recorded live to tape. (Well, there still are some electronic elements, but they are certainly only a condiment rather than a meal here.) I can not say enough about how the reaction is going to turn heads and I can not WAIT to hear them do some of these songs live in concert this summer! Mark my words, it will be one of your favorite albums of the year!
Source on harddriveradio.com
Special thanks to Jas at LPTimes for the awesome find!