Album Review: From Zero

From Zero: Linkin Park has debuted their newest album, their first since 2017, and their first since the passing of beloved lead vocalist Chester Bennington. In September 2024, after a mystery countdown, the band announced during a live performance that Emily Armstrong would be taking the spot as their lead vocalist. Also announced was this album which dropped November 15th.

For those hoping for a return to form, this is not that, disappointingly. Given the insinuation of the title, a reference to the band's first unreleased EP Xero, I was hoping for more. While some tracks scratch some of the itch that has been left behind in Bennington’s absence, I feel a majority of the album is a miss. Putting tracks like Heavy Is the Crown and The Emptiness Machine out as singles makes sense as they feel the closest to what I expect from a Linkin Park album.

And really that is the issue I find myself struggling with. Can I really review this album on its own merits without the shadow of the previous works in my mind? If I take the album by itself, it’s a mishmash of modern rock and watered down nu-metal with a hint of punk sprinkled in. Nothing really stands out as amazing or something I would find myself listening to if it didn’t have the Linkin Park name attached. But this album does not exist in a vacuum. There is nearly 25 years of Linkin Park tracks to compare and contrast this one too and if they wanted to avoid the onslaught of “not as good as Hybrid Theory” critiques, I genuinely think it would have been the better move to retire the Linkin Park name and start fresh from zero, as it were.

This album feels caught in the middle (Ironic after listening to the track Two Faced) of competing styles and trying to fit a new lead singer in the middle of it, ignoring all the other controversy that comes along with her, makes the album feel disjointed and like it has little to no purpose in the modern rock and metal scene. All that being said I will highlight some of the tracks I found enjoyable despite not rising to my expectations. Stained is a lively, upbeat track that has a nice sounding percussion sound. I’m not sure where it falls genre wise even among the Linkin Park discography, but I still enjoy listening to it and find myself coming back to it while writing this review. Good Things Go, being the last track on the album and listening through the whole thing the first time made me hope it would be a slower and emotional song akin to My December or Shadow of the Day, to really showcase Armstrongs vocals in a way we hadn’t seen yet. While I got the emotional part right, we'll have to wait for a live performance of these songs to see her full range. The track has themes of self-loathing and reflection, with some religious undertones. Mike Shinoda’s verses really are at their best here. Him and Armstrong appear to have good chemistry on this track, and it comes through in the final product. It almost plays like a classic duet. Two Faced is the closest thing I think the album has to offer to a "classic" Linkin Park sound, and it does scratch the itch that the rest of the album does not. I just wish the rest of the offering was in line with it. While I will claim, Heavy is the Crown and Two Faced are the best on the album, and I will continue to play them on air during Cat Core (Every Saturday 12-2!) I am not sure if I will be adding any of them to my daily rotation of playlists.

I keep coming back to the feeling of nothing here reaching any level of my admittedly high expectations, even when I remove the Linkin Park name. All in all, I am left disappointed more than anything. There is nothing wrong with the music itself and if you find yourself as a new or old listener enjoying this album then do not let anyone take it from you. For me this album just falls short across the board, but I hope that the band continues to put out new music just with either a more distinct style to separate themselves from the past or fully engross themselves in their legacy.