Linkin Park - Meteora (2002)

Around 3 years after release of Linkin Park's debut "Hybrid Theory" album, they returned with a brand new record. The way it further explores the Nu Metal genre and doubles down on the tropes established earlier, made it as legendary as its predecessor. Though, more often than not, the sound of "Meteora" seems more polished, more subdued and less flashy than the previous effort. And imo, that is both the album's greatest strength, as well as it's biggest weakness.

The band starts the album off with one of its highlighs - "Don't Stay" (bundled with its brief intro track called "Foreword"). It's an often overlooked and remarkably powerfull track, full of power-chord riffing and typical Linkin Park song structure. It kinda seems to mirror "Papercut" from the previous album, both with it's composition and tracklist placement. I'm curious if that was intentional.

As for the classics included here, we have "Somewhere I belong", "Breaking the Habit" and of course "Numb". All of them are pretty nice, well written radio songs with enormous legacy. "Numb" is certainly my favourite of them. It's a legendary song that means a lot to me and I refuse to say any negative stuff about it. I come back to all of those tracks from time to time, but they obviously are so overplayed, that it's admittedly hard to enjoy them as much as in the past...

We going back to deep cuts with "Lying From You", which opens with this heavy, disjointed, chromatic riff. - it's the most Linkin Park thing ever, and it slaps so hard! I think it's one of my favourite songs here.

"Hit the Floor", catchy "Faint" and "Figure.09" all try to do this one thing of being essentially a rap song with metal riffs attached and with screamy vocal chorus provided by Chester. I definitely prefer the latter two, since they feel more thought-out and refined.

In contrast to the rap songs, the band offers some more melodic songs, such as admittedly cool "From the Inside", or "Easier to Run", full of interesing harmonic choices and chord juxtapositions. The choruses of these songs feel very satisfying as they contrast very prominently with such heavy pounders like "Lying From You" or "Hit the Floor"...

The Mike-centered "Nobody's Listening" is definitely my least favourite song here. I don't like the use of this wacky looped sample and the fact that the whole song is built around it. It makes it tiresome to get through, even tho the songs has some ok moments, like Chester's choruses.

"Session" is this album's version of "Cure for the Itch", and it's just as fun and compelling. It reeeaaaaly could've used LESS SCRATCHES tho. I really like this album and this period of music history, but I simply can't stand the overuse of this annoying sound-effect trope.

Overall, the album is a worthy successor to "Hybird Theory". It builds upon it and refines the distinctive musicianship of Linkin Park as a band. It being a little less rough around the edges can make it less enjoyable for some people tho. It is noticeable that the seeds of "One More Light" were already sown at this time, and Linkin Park's slow but steady drift towards poppy, softer music was imminent. Yeah, the band's still loud and angry here, their it's just becoming a whole less brash. This process will eventually come into fruition with their next release in 2007.

Anyway, the album's great! It's a real nostalgic journey full of surprisingly interesting musical curiosities, that are often overlook due to internet hate on Nu Metal. But I think it's a definite must-listen for every music fan.