Preamble

As a person who grew up mostly in the early 2000s, I, like many, was a huge fan of Linkin Park. They were one of the bands that seemed to always release an album that seemed to be directly written for me at that moment in my life. I must have listened to “Meteora” and “Minutes to Midnight” for hours each. “A Thousand Suns” and “Living Things: released during my college years, and I would play them on rotation while studying for tests and doing assignments. All that to say, Linkin Park was a massive influence on my life for a long time.

When Chester Bennington passed away, I remember revisiting all of the albums from Linkin Park, and catching up on the ones that I had missed since graduating and having life get in the way of listening to new music. I watched the concert on YouTube that the band put on in his memory, and found myself getting extremely emotional.

An era was over. A part of my childhood had ended.

And for a long time, I thought that that would be it. I mean, how could you have Linkin Park without Chester? That would be like having a PB&J without the J! Unthinkable!!!

Then, in 2024, I found out the band was releasing a new album with a new lead singer. Someone I had not heard of before, but that did not really matter. It felt wrong at first. Like listening to the new album would be a betrayal of what Chester had done and what the band was before.

So I avoided the new project for a while. I couldn’t bring myself to listen, partially because what if I liked it?

I inadvertently listened to the first single about a month after the album released. I was using the DJ option on Spotify (an AI-generated radio station based off of the user’s listening trend), and The Emptiness Machine came on, and there they were. Linkin Park was back. Sure, they were different, but the pieces were there. So, I decided I would give the full thing a go. Listen from start to finish and see how I felt when it was all done.

Giving the New Kid a Chance

I considered, when coming up with ideas for this post, to include a discussion of the background of From Zero, and what happened with the band between Chester’s passing in 2017 and the new release in 2024, but decided that it would be easier just to link to the Wikipedia article for those interested. So, here it is. It’s a pretty interesting read.

There has been a bit of controversy over “From Zero”, with the son of Chester Bennington being very outspoken on his disdain for the fact that the new singer for the band, Emily Armstrong, replaced his late father, and I can understand where he is coming from. I, too, would be worried if I felt my father’s legacy was in jeopardy of being erased.

However, I wanted to approach my listening experience with as little bias as I could. I wanted to, essentially, approach the album as if it were from a new group, and see how it would stack up on it’s own merit, divorced from the emotional baggage I had with the band. I think I was able to accomplish this very well, but I’m only human. So, sue me.

The album begins with a few tracks where Mike Shinoda takes the forefront and Emily Armstrong acts as more of a background player. I think this was a solid choice, as it allows fans to grasp onto what is familiar and safe. It’s what I imagine going to a high school reunion is like, in a person’s mind (I skipped my ten year reunion for a litany of reasons, chief among them that I now live across the country from where I grew up).

About half way through the album, Emily Armstrong takes on a more front-man-style presence within the group. And boy howdy, does it hit just right with me. Her vocals fit well with the rest of the band, and it teleported me back to when I first found Linkin Park, albeit, in a different sense. The album, as a whole, hits just right for where I am at this point in my life as a thirty-something year old who is constantly targeted by ads preying on my nostalgia. It’s new and nostalgic. It’s newstalgic!

Closing Thoughts

Chester Bennington was and still is one of my favorite musicians. His passion and emotive abilities in the music he produced were such an influential part of my life for so long. He gave voice to the feelings I couldn’t quite process as a teenager.

No one can replace him.

But I don’t think that Linkin Park is trying to do that in “From Zero”. To me, the new album is a way for the remaining band members to continue forward with each other, while honoring what came before. Emily Armstrong is a strong addition to an already stellar ensemble. And, while the feel of the tracks, and the vibe of the album are still very much Linkin Park, it’s a new chapter to an ongoing epic.

By continuing the project that is Linkin Park, the band allows and invites new people to explore what came before. To listen to Chester Bennington’s legacy and appreciate what an amazing artist he was. “From Zero” feels like a gateway, both to the future of what the band can be, but also to the history of the group. There’s so much of the DNA of what Linkin Park was still present in this album, but so much new energy that it gives me hope for what lies ahead.