Genre: Rock

Rating: 8/10

From Zero is the eighth studio album from the popular American rock band, Linkin Park. After losing the original vocalist, Chester Bennington, seven years ago, the band is back with a new album and a new vocalist, Emily Armstrong. With a seven year hiatus from their last album, this new project proved to be great nevertheless.

The album consists of 11 songs, one of them being the intro. Each song displays a variety of vocal performances and instrumental work while still managing to maintain both the prime Linkin Park sound of the 2000s and their more modern sound. There was clear experimentation present on this album, which is shown through songs like “Casualty”, which delivers a heavier, nu-metal sound to it, and “Overflow”, which has a slower and more atmospheric or cinematic sound to it. Emily Armstrong also pays homage to Chester Bennington through specific vocal performances such as the 16 second scream in “Heavy Is the Crown” and the breakdown in “Two Faced”. Armstrong consistently delivers amazing vocal performances on this album, making her a perfect substitute for Bennington.

On the other hand, some songs felt slightly more generic and could have been executed better such as “Stained” and “Over Each Other”. Not every song is a banger on this album unlike the band’s debut albums Hybrid Theory and Meteora. However, the successful experimentation on most of the songs on this album make up for that.

Overall, From Zero is an album meant to display the origins of Linkin Park while also incorporating their new sound and providing nostalgia for long-time fans, and it was executed very well.

written by Ayush Rao