Linkin Park’s Risky Rebirth Paid Off

Photo: James Minchin

In observing the brusque locomotion characterizing the rollout of Linkin Park’s new album, From Zero, it’s useful to remember that the band was a second chance for Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington. In early 1999, both songwriters struggled to find their sound and audience. Shinoda, an L.A. rapper and producer, was searching for a new vocalist for his rap-metal start-up Xero, whose original crooner tanked a crucial record-label showcase months prior; his Phoenix-area counterpart couldn’t figure out what to do with himself after the disintegration of his grunge outfit, Grey Daze. The success of Hybrid Theory was a come-from-behind victory for the duo. They spent the next 18 years fleshing out roles as musical foils, deciding how far to wander away from (or how hastily to retreat to) the dark alt-rock with colorful hip-hop and IDM garnishes they whipped up on the 2000 debut and its 2004 follow-up, Meteora.

But Linkin Park lost Bennington in the worst way any group can part with a singer. His death by suicide two months after the launch of 2017’s One More Light left a band and fandom restructuring as a support group. It was difficult to imagine this unit working without that distinct presence, but it’s been done before. Alice in Chains reformed with Comes With the Fall’s William Duvall after Layne Staley’s tragic 2002 overdose, and Bennington himself replaced the late Scott Weiland in Stone Temple Pilots for two years in the 2010s. Linkin Park’s return in September with Dead Sara singer Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain was a shock-and-awe campaign: new shows, singles, and interviews. But imposing questions were lost in the shuffle: What was the story of Armstrong’s involvement with the Church of Scientology, and why were Chester Bennington’s mother and son saying they found out about the Linkin Park reunion along with the public?

The Scientology issue is knotty. Armstrong admits attending a preliminary hearing for Danny Masterson was a bad idea, and that revelations in the case inspired her to cut ties. What’s not entirely clear is how she feels about the church, which, in Masterson’s sexual-assault trial, was accused of sending agents to stalk victims he met as a member. Maybe Armstrong hasn’t openly discussed the church for fear of some undesirable reprisal, and maybe, detractors suggested, she’s just hiding the fact that she’s still a regular participant. The latter claim is unprovable. But the discussions around From Zero chose to center a band overjoyed to reactivate and inch toward the chemistry the album documents. The wisdom of this tack is further called into question by Bennington’s family’s complaints, which at best paint the new endeavor as a stop-at-nothing push forward that moved like it didn’t need their input, and at worst claim there was an urge to replace the “Crawling” singer before the original lineup’s untimely end. The album arriving without securing this blessing itches. Why wouldn’t the family be in the loop? Was there a worry they would have the same uncomfortable and unrestrained response before the audience could be won over with a new single, September’s “The Emptiness Machine”?

The triumphs and troubles of the new era all seem to stem from the fact that after years of clawing away at a new path, Shinoda feels like he’s found his counterpart again. He’s a studio whiz on the hunt for the perfect instrument, a rapper seeking compelling hooks to balance his verses, and a rocker who aches for coarser, trickier vocal tones than he can deliver. You can watch this mechanic play out in 2010’s Meeting of a Thousand Suns DVD. The breakdown in “Blackout” is born when Bennington records a bloodcurdling shriek that Shinoda turns into one-shot samples on MPC for Joe Hahn to sculpt into a simulated scratch routine. Linkin Park is a wonder of aggressive force meeting tight structure. The notion is reinforced in a conversation between Shinoda and Armstrong shared on YouTube. He admits he needs to make a point to express excitement about a studio performance sometimes, forgetting to snap out of analysis and into the moment. He’s a tinkerer, and on From Zero, Armstrong provides viscous, combustible fuel.

The care that went into crafting an album that contends with multiple incarnations of Linkin Park reveals a unit with its sights set on conquering arenas and stadiums again. It understands that the business of a comeback album is to serve something chewy enough to hold as adhesive between hits from disparate epochs. It minds the swing from straight nü metal through hard rock, punk, and trap-pop traceable across the albums Linkin Park released in the twilight of down-tuned, crunchy rap-rock as a dominant pop-culture phenomenon. Clearing the vaults in a reissue campaign we now understand to have dovetailed with the courtship of the new singer paid off. This band gets itself and no longer moves in trepidation about the negative perceptions of the era it sprung from.

Tacitly referencing the band’s history with its title as it brushes the cobwebs off beloved sonic signatures, From Zero is wisely, almost self-consciously balanced. “Two Faced” and “IGYEIH” are both period pieces, the former embracing the 1999 sound — serrated start-stop riffs, percussive rap verses, and misanthropic shouts jousting with scratches during the breakdown — and the latter revisiting the impossibly catchy 2004 iteration. “The Emptiness Machine” and “Cut the Bridge” revisit the skate-punk airs that peppered 2007’s Minutes to Midnight. The poppy, divisive One More Light sound resurfaces for “Overflow” and “Stained,” where Shinoda sings and raps like one of his genre-hybridizing successors while guitars swell instead of stab.

Armstrong brings rewarding tension to an established compositional squad bear hugging its pet sounds. Her lyrics tap into frustrations in relationships without narrative hand-holding. The grit effected in noisy vocal performances vanishes in a clean tone that’s more ephemeral than that of her predecessor. The haunting quiet of “Overflow” feels less forced than the bristlier Punk Goes Pop dynamics nagging the airier Light songs; the slick, belting choruses of “Stained” and “Two Faced” suggest a dark-pop pathway available to a singer like Katy Perry in the future. From Zero is aware of the pliability of alternative as a concept in the era where Billie Eilish records occupy the same genre charts as the Foo Fighters, and Nick Cave and Clairo are vying for the same Grammy. Trouble spots arise as songs lean tackily into nostalgia. “Cut the Bridge” is too thirsty for a sip of the glory of Midnight’s “What I’ve Done” and “Bleed It Out,” and “Casualty” grates, simulating the angular aggression of 2014’s The Hunting Party. The gruff verses in the latter still convey the sense that Shinoda thrives with an alternatingly coarser and softer vocal counterpart.

The effort that went into threading appeals to apologists for every era of Linkin Park across From Zero makes the points that haven’t been addressed stand out. It’s like no one wanted to say anything that will derail the good vibes, and it sucks that a haze of nose-crinkling lore and unanswered questions preceded songs like “IGYEIH” and “Two Faced,” perfect blasts of aughts-era sports-game soundtrack abrasiveness. But to love a band is to understand it as a web of intersecting interests. To want the best for Linkin Park is to see Shinoda, Hahn, and bassist Phoenix fulfilled; to appreciate the needs of non-touring guitarist Brad Delson and the wish of original drummer Rob Bourdon to leave kit duties behind; and to make sure Emily Armstrong and Colin Brittain get a fair shake while protecting Bennington’s memory and next of kin. You can’t keep everyone on the same page forever; you can strive to make grace a bottom line. Maybe there was never a path to reviving Linkin Park that wouldn’t get mired in a thicket of alternatingly reasoned and conspiratorial tiffs and accusations at one point or another. But one wonders whether as many people would be thrown off if the band eased off the gas in the sharper turns they made on a road to reinvention.