Oh, my gosh. Hi, everyone. Linkthony Parktano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Linkin Park album From Zero.

Yes, the legendary alternative rock music outfit Linkin Park is back with their eighth album. It's their first studio full length in seven whole years, and also the first they have come out with that features their brand new lead singer Emily Armstrong of the band Dead Sara, someone who, out of the gate, was proven to be a controversial pick due to associations that she has had with the likes of Danny Masterson, as well as personal connections to the world of Scientology.

However, there were minimal attempts from the band to really address this, and it didn't really slow down the role of singles that dropped in the lead up to this record, which now that it's out is surprisingly scant. It's just 10 tracks and an intro that total up to just over 30 minutes of run time. Somehow the band managed to streamline things even more since the release of their last record, One More Light, which was also on the short side. Maybe it's the case that on this new one, the band doesn't want to be doing too much or overextending themselves because in part, it does feel like this record exists to sell us on the idea that Emily Armstrong is a decent replacement for the late and beloved Chester Bennington, one of the most celebrated vocalists in modern rock and metal music point blank period.

Losing him, frankly, leaves Linkin Park with one of the most unfillable voids for any band lineup ever. But you can't really blame them for trying, though, because Linkin Park is a group whose cultural legacy and impact still burn strong to this day. They're a band who I'm sure would love to be playing their classic tracks in front of thousands and thousands of adoring fans who want to hear them, but they can't do it with that key part of their lineup gone.

Enter Emily Armstrong. Here she comes to fill those shoes. However, merely just announcing a new live singer isn't necessarily going to generate the engagement that a group might be seeking if they are trying to stay relevant in this very saturated music market, even if you have the legacy that Linkin Park does. Again, sonically speaking, the primary focus on this album seems to be to convince fans that this is the same band despite the massive lineup change happening before our eyes. Linkin Park is not just trying to prove to us that they're the same band, but also Emily is in the band and getting along with the band. There's chemistry there as shown by all of the funny little intimate banter snippets that play periodically throughout the album between tracks where Mike and Emily are going back and forth. But those aren't necessary because I feel like the results on this record speak for themselves.

Because for the most part, I think Emily's voice really does complement Linkin Park's sound. Given her vocal range and capacity for throat-shredding screams, I can very much imagine her pulling off those pivotal Chester Bennington moments on many a classic Linkin Park track. She also clearly gives the band the ability to continue writing vocal parts as they always have. Because in the tracklist on this LP, the band musters multiple songs that feel like, again, classic Linkin Park hits, but subtly thrown into a blender, so they're not making exact copies of songs like "Numb" as well as "One Step Closer". Though if you listen closely, you'll catch whips of those types of tracks.

Even the lead single on this thing, "The Emptiness Machine". When the track kicks off, you really get all of these heavy driving alt rock riffs, soaring melodic leads from Emily, Mike Shinoda is also leaning more into his singing voice as opposed to the rapping. In addition to this, you get that classic Linkin Park lyricism where they're taking a complex emotional issue but really reducing it down almost to a fault to where the dynamics being described come across as a bit too simple, as what's happening on this track is you have a protagonist who is acting inauthentically – they're not being their true selves. You can almost say that their existence is like a lie. The reason they're doing this is to be accepted, is to gain something, is to be entered into the emptiness machine to fit in, I guess you could say. It's not a mind-blowing. It's not a terrible track either. It just feels like it is fulfilling the bare minimum, aesthetically, of what we would expect from a Linkin Park song. No more, no less.

It's really a matter of whether or not you want to go into an album just to hear the band prove that they can relive past glories in a way. And look, as somebody who was a big fan when I was a kid of their early, early stuff, I will say there are moments on this album where they pull off very well, like on the song "Heavy is the Crown", where I feel like they check a lot of those similar boxes that "The Emptiness Machine" does, but it goes even harder this time. Mike is even giving us the rapping again. We have those heavy jump the fuck up riffs on a climactic bridge toward the finish. Even though the song isn't really breaking any new ground for the band, I will say I guess I would rather hear them do this than extend themselves into territory that is uncomfortable or exposes, I guess, just a lack of actual versatility.

The song "Two Faced" is another deep cut that I feel like fits into that classic Linkin Park formula. There are even bits of this track that read as One Step Closer to the edge to me. Sure, that riffy climax with Emily screaming over those guitars might seem a little stereotypical or even cliché for Linkin Park at this point, but it's still impressive that with a new vocalist, with a different lineup, they're still able to pull off this exact vibe with that accuracy. In fact, I would actually say this song should have been the lead single to the record. Also with the lyrics on this track, you're getting classic Linkin Park writing where you're getting a very cathartic metal anthem about somebody who's just very difficult to deal with or a very stressful interpersonal dynamic. In this case, it's somebody who's two-faced, duplicitous, that thing.

For the most part, as much as Emily's inclusion into the lineup may have caused some fans to fret, she holds her own on this record, and she is most definitely not the weakest link in the chain when it comes to this album.

The moments on this record that falter are the ones where the territory feels unfamiliar or the songwriting is just scant or poorly executed. Take "Overflow" as well as "Cut the Bridge", two tracks that, broadly to my ears, come across as very theatrical. The background vocals are actually even giving me Hamilton vibes. Even the instrumentals on these tracks read as being very melodramatic rock opera pieces. Alt rock opera pieces, that is. And while when it comes to Linkin Park's music, I do expect at least some theatrics and angst, theatre kid metal is not really what I tune in for.

Deeper into the record, the song "Stained" feels less like a Linkin Park song and more like a Mike Shinoda track featuring Emily Armstrong in terms of it being like some very bright, beat-heavy industrial pop rock with that metal element just being missing. And while "Over Each Other" does feature a decent vocal performance from Emily on the chorus – again, classic writing as far as the lyrics go, because you're dealing in this never-ending series of arguments that don't really resolve – this track also feels out of place on the record because without Mike Shinoda there vocally and just Emily being on the track, it doesn't really feel like a Linkin Park song, especially with the instrumental coming across as so bland, not really having some of those electronic bells and whistles that their production is often covered in to signal that you are hearing an alt metal and alt group that is leaning into other genre blends. But yeah, ultimately this track just feels like I'm listening to another band entirely.

Despite this shortcoming, I will say Emily does vocally smash it when the band is trying to go as hard as humanly possible, like on "Casualty", the most aggressive song on the record, handily. It has these fast, punky, sludgy guitar riffs. Emily's vocals are just absolutely monstrous, and the song is so aggressive. It's even got Mike in the mix, throwing some growls into it. Even Mike is sounding angry on here and actually selling it pretty well.

But yeah, while there are some decent highlights in this tracklist, that does not an amazing album make. I mean, if you whittle this project down to its best moments, I feel like ultimately what you would have is a great EP. You essentially have a handful of strong radio rockers on here that reconnect with the band's classic beloved sound. Then you have a lot of gaps in between that are just not anywhere near as gratifying. Then it finishes off with a very unceremonious, just thankless closer that has an ironic message. The track is essentially about good things going away and being replaced by not so good things or just stuff that isn't as interesting or is great in comparison.

Or at least that's what the chorus would have you believe if you were to read directly into the words there. All of these surrounding lyrics are actually so packed with non sequiturs and clichés that it's difficult to actually tell what thematic direction the song is going in. As Mike and Emily trade bars about spitting out your medicine that you don't want to take, asking for forgiveness, putting out fires, pushing people away when they get close, having a hard time laughing when you're the joke. There's also one lyric that stood out to me as maybe the worst on the entire album, where Mike spits a bar about falling down the stairs while everyone stares.

With all of that being said, though, look, again, From Zero is better than I expected it to be, honestly. There are a handful of very good alt rock anthems on here where Linkin Park is sounding like their usual selves, better than they have in years, frankly, as in my opinion, a lot of the band's late era records have been weak. In that sense, they're really like coming back a little bit. They're really returning to form with Emily in the mix.

But that glory only really lasts the length of a pretty brief rock song here and there on this already also brief record. I guess it remains to be seen if whether or not the band can extend this magic out to the length of an entire album later down the road. But I actually wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day, this album was mostly just assembled as a means of getting the band together, getting a tour together, which I'm sure once it happens, will absolutely kick ass, and the fans will probably eat it up and go crazy.

For the most part, I'm feeling a strong 4 to a light 5 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano, Linkin Park, Forever.