Linkin Park: 'Shadow Of The Day'

Released on Monday, October 8 2007

Is this really the new Linkin Park single? Initially I was under the impression somebody had switched the CD in the stereo for the new Enrique Iglesias album as some sort of amusing jape. Gone are the snarling, fist-clenching, nu-metal bad boys that growled: "In THE ENNND IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER", as if their baggy jeans, black hoodies and synth set depended on it. In their place we have crooning, a swooping chorus that's so big Bono and The Edge might have turned it down for being too overblown and some soft, tender vocals from the usually gruffer-than-your-alcoholic-uncle Chester Bennington.

It opens with some rasping drum machine beats, before Bennington starts hollering about setting suns and shadows with the sort of broad brush strokes lyrics that could be talking about pretty much anything. We don't even get the usual crunching guitars until after the second chorus, where they appear to have jumbled up the chords to 'With Or Without You' and recomposed them with some Duran Duran-style '80s effects. 'Shadow Of The Day' screams stadium rawk from its every pore and is more nu-Brian Adams than nu-metal. Which isn't such a bad thing if you were never a fan of the 'Park' in the first place.

Source: www.digitalspy.co.uk