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One of the most hotly anticipated albums this year was Linkin Park’s latest, Minutes To Midnight. Tipped as a new direction for the band, there’s noticably less rapping from Shinoda. So, naturally, Chester Bennington features more prominently on this album.

Rather than doing a straight review, I’ve trawled the web to bring you some of the best reviews of the new album.

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Ok, let’s get started. I’ve decided to organise this round-up into three types of review: those who loved Minutes To Midnight, those who hated it, and those who were indifferent. I’ve avoided the mainstream magazines - this one’s strictly for the citizen journalists!

Positive Reviews

• HardRockHouse describes the album as a huge improvement over Meteora and applauds the “intelligence and deep social conscience in the Linkin Park ethos”
• Common Sense Media reviews the album from an adult and child standpoint, and while they find the subject matter a bit depressing, the general outcome is that the themes will resonate with teenagers…
• IcyStorm over on Arrogantics rates the album as a 4/5 and notes that the change in musical direction was probably necessary for the band. (However, other members of the Arrogantics team are less than impressed - check the comments)
• Found a really positive review of Minutes To Midnight over on Last.fm:
  

  this is one of those where I can put the album on and let the whole thing go without skipping a track. It works as an album in a way that lots of other music I’ve heard lately doesn’t.

• AllAccess Magazine carries a glowing review of the new album, and like other reviewers here, they note the onclusion ofexcellent liner notes to explain their songwriting process to interested fans.
• Another happy LP customer at Splatr, where they’re very fond of the new album. I notice that a lot of people who considered Meteora a flop find Minutes To Midnight much better.

Negative Reviews

• Michael Kwan was less than impressed with Minutes To Midnight, mostly because of the shortness of the record.
  

  There’s a couple of good songs, but Linkin Park is far from being as good as they were on their freshman album, Hybrid Theory… Nearly gone are the beautiful blend of Mike Shinoda’s rapping and Chester Bennington’s raspy screaming. In their place are songs that almost qualify as ballads.

• Pandora over on Shakefire was bored by the album, saying there were only about 2.5 songs worth listening to.
• And John Wright takes the position of the fan left behind by the new Linkin Park sound. While he notes that it’s not a bad record, he says “a stripped-down Linkin Park, without their trademark sound, doesn’t make them groundbreaking or mature”.
• Despite the 3.5 out of 5 rating, Kariyanine’s review is actually mostly negative. She’s disappointed with a number of the songs and feels that the much hyped ‘new sound’ is just a toning down of their original musical style than any real progression.
• Ouch! This one laments the almost-disappearance of Mike Shinoda, as well as the musical style “Midnight is a slow trotting, ballad-riddled mess with no consistency between tracks, no flow”

Indifferent reviews

• The folks at GeekReviews start off by saying they like it as much as other Linkin Park albums, but end on a less than enthusiastic note. Can’t believe they were cold on Hands Held High though - it’s an excellent track.
• Billboard say that the album sounds derivative of other acts (can’t see it myself), but praises the band for Bleed It Out and Hands Held High.
• A well written analysis of Minutes To Midnight over on avrev.com looks at the motivations of the band - hit records versus artistic growth and comes down (marginally) on the side of artistic growth. To quote: “I don’t hate this record. I found myself enjoying it periodically. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give it away.”

So there you go. If you’ve got any opinions left about Linkin Park’s latest album after all that, let us know in the comments!