It feels like decades since Linkin Park threatened to become a band capable of having a interesting career full of albums that experimented with the different aspects of the band’s sound with more albums like A Thousand Suns. Instead they took the easy path and released the average Living Things, and then the deplorable The Hunting Party. They sacrificed their creative force for easy money, easy popularity. Their new single, entitled Heavy (ironically the least heavy song they have ever released) feels like a culmination of the bands slide into mediocrity. They always had elements of pop in their music, it's one of the reasons they transcended the nu-metal garbage heap that critics relegated them to and became such a crossover success.
Heavy is the sound of a band losing their edge, an edge that was admittedly blunted by the cartoon metal of The Hunting Party. Still, in spite of my best judgement, I'm still curious about the new album despite this damp squib of a single. It’s not that Linkin Park becoming a pure pop band is a bad thing, but they have to have the songs to back it up, and Heavy isn't one of them.
