I unhappily have to say that I'm one of those guys who were really disappointed by ATS. In fact the only song I like out of that album is The Catalyst, 'cause it's good enough to ignore those two hard electronic parts.
After ATS I kinda lost my belief in Linkin Park. When I first heard them in around 2004/2005, they instantly became my favourite band and until the end of 2007 I did not hear any other music. And although I loved the sound of Hybrid Theory and Meteora, I also loved Minutes To Midnight as much as their previous work, 'cause in terms of melody and harmony it probably was their best work ever.
Whatever, like I mentioned before, I was and I am very disappointed by ATS, so I did not really have expectations on Living Things (and if I did, they were really low). And probably that's the reason why I'm pleasantly surprised. I now listened to it several times and it's definitely not as good as HT, Meteora or M2M were, but in fact it is WAY better than ATS was and although I'm really not a friend of electronic music, I kinda like most parts of Living Things, and that's a big advance, isn't it?
I'm thankful that Linkin Park made it possible for me to make something like a restart with their new style of music, as it's more powerful than ATS and kind of a symbiosis between their old heavy music and their new eletronic stuff. I'll probably never love them as much as I did in the past, but maybe Living Things can help me to become more familiar with what they're doing right now.
If anybody read through this block of text, here's my song-by-song-review, although I'm pretty sure my opinion about a couple of songs may change a bit after I heard them more often.
01 - LOST IN THE ECHO - 9/10
I'm totally in love with this song. Although it has got some heavy electronics on it, they don't annoy me (which is remarkable), as this song is so energetic and melodious and probably got one of the greatest choruses they've ever written. The only reason why I don't give it 10 points out of 10 is that I know songs which are still definitely better, musically and emotionally, but Lost In The Echo nevertheless is a great track (although I didn't like it that much when I listened to it the first time).
02 - IN MY REMAINS - 6-7/10
Depends on if it's able to grow on me after some time. Solid, but not very special song. I like it, though.
03 - BURN IT DOWN - 1/10
Most of you will disagree with this opinion, but I personally kinda hate Burn It Down. It's way too electronic for me and I REALLY don't like the harmony, especially in the chorus. Everytime I hear it, it makes me wanna disappear immediately. Horrible.
04 - LIES GREED MISERY - 4/10
This could've been a great song, but like Burn It Down it's too electronic for me. I heard it live at the Telekom StreetGig in Berlin and it was way better than the studio version, which simply doesn't sound good for me, although the chorus is, theoretically, very powerful (would be with better drums and better singing).
05 - I'LL BE GONE - 7-8/10
Cannot say much about this song. I like it.
06 - CASTLE OF GLASS - 6-7/10
Something like a better version of In Between to me, "better" being the operative word. I like the breakdown between chorus and verse, and I like the verse more than the chorus. Nice song.
07 - VICTIMIZE - 0/10
Crap. Worst "song" they've ever written, and I'm not pretty sure why I'm calling it a "song".
08 - ROADS UNTRAVELED - 5-6/10
Lyrically the sequel of No Roads Left, but to be honest, NRL is definitely better. Has got an interesting harmony, but it's a little too boring.
09 - SKIN TO BONE - 4/10
Same harmony like Roads Untraveled... but it's the worse than it's predecessor. I don't really like it, although I could imagine that it will grow a little on me. Not much, though.
10 - UNTIL IT BREAKS - 0/10
One of the big questions of Living Things: What's worse? Victimize or Until It Breaks? I don't know, but both songs are simply disgusting.
11 - TINFOIL - /
Won't rate this song as it's more an intro to Powerless for me. Nice short piece of music.
12 - POWERLESS - 9/10
Second best track on Living Things in my opinion, because of it's epic ending. Reminds me of The Little Things Give You Away, although it's not that superb (TLTGYA is a nearly 10). Verse and Chorus are good, but not great, which is why I actually wasn't sure about giving it an 8 or 9. But, like I said, the ending is wonderful, and it definitely calls up those big emotions inside of me that are the reason why I'm loving music that much.
Living Things has it's positive and negative sides, but in conclusion, I find it a lot better than A Thousand Suns and I really fell in love with Lost In The Echo and Powerless. <3 I wanna thank Linkin Park for giving me this possibility to come back to them. And I hope they'll continue at this point, 'cause although I'll always be a little sad because they changed their style so rapidly, I really don't want to lose my connection with this amazing band.
