10mo ago

Linkin Park reunites with 7 years after Chester Bennington's death, with new music

apnews.com Linkin Park reunite 7 years after Chester Bennington's death, with new music

The band kicked off a livestream showcasing new singer Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain, who will join returning members in Linkin Park’s new lineup.

As someone who grew up loving Linkin Park, I am hesitantly excited. The single they released is actually pretty good - The Emptiness Machine.

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She's a Scientologist. Yuck.
- And defended Danny Masterson, the rapist.
- Dammit. Hard pass on new Linkin Park. I'll stick to their old stuff.
  
  Yep hard pass not supporting her or the band anymore.
- Is or Was? Big Difference here.
  
  Is.

Hot take: I hate when bands switch their singer or a lot of their members and still stick to the old band name.
The only reason to do it is to get the instant reach, but you will always be sandbagging on a name that means something else and a lot of fans will only compare your new lineup to the old one.
Making a new band name means you have to start fresh, but sometimes you can already take some relationships and prestige into your new project (Mike shinoda is a household name outside of Linkin park) and no one will expect a specific style out of you. It just feels like the better thing to do in most circumstances.
I'm torn. I wanna like them and I wish them the best, but this name brings back memories and also expectations. It sticks like tar to every new release and even though that's not fair, it won't change until they rebrand into something new.
- Hard agree.
- But then you also get bands that had Chris Cornell in them and they'd all equally be just as awesome. Or how A Perfect Circle still basically sounds like TOOL.
  
  That's fair, but I would prefer that over Linkin Park sounding like a completely different band.
  Or Dream State, where 3/5 members got switched out and they stuck to the name, and now they sound completely different.
- I haven't even given Sublime (with Rome) a chance. I just stick to old Sublime.
- I agree completely. Alice in Chains is my favorite band, but I really don't think seeing them live would be worth it because they'd be doing all of Layne's songs without him. I know that in that case, Jerry also contributed a great deal to the lyrics and sound, but without Layne something feels missing...
- System would never.
  (Can’t wait for this one to age poorly)
  
  Hopefully they are all secretly immortal. Also hopefully I haven't missed any news about them and you're just bringing them up because they are adjacent to Linkin Park in your headspace.

She was great. She's able to hit those vocal ranges that Chester was able to. Kinda sounds like him too in certain songs.
Looking forward to this new era of LP.
- She did a good job but this really made me appreciate how unique Chester Bennington's voice was.
  Edit: I take it back. She's a Scientologist. Gross.
  
  You realized it before this 😉.
  But agree with you. I do like what I'm hearing, so take the rest of this comment as microcritique.
  ... it sounds too polished to me. It sounds too much like their later albums (fine), but i feel like I'm not given any time to fall in love with the raw vocals and the raw sound. It just sounds too polished out of the gate, especially for a live show.
  I think the underproduced to overproduced sound happens with everyone, so not knocking it, but id really love to hear some more raw (less overproduced) music with this band and this singer.
  That being said I've only listened to the first song! Ive bookmarked it for this weekend .
  
  Just looking for proof she’s currently a Scientologist.
- Listened to a few songs then gave up She really needs to stop trying to mimic Chester and just be herself. When she lets herself sing it's decent. She has a good range but nowhere near the power that Chester had. It's just not there and never will be.
  I'd rather hear her make the songs her own in her most comfortable range.
  
  She needs to learn how to sing from her diaphragm. Like a singer.
- She definitley can't hit the vocal rangers of Chester. Sounds very unnatural when she tries to do that.
- Thanks for the link! I agree - a few songs there were some notable "slumps" compared to what I would have expected from Chester, but there were also some parts that came across a little better? She has a great voice for the singing parts, and a really respectable scream.
  Waiting for the End almost made me cry.

I saw the live performance of Somewhere I Belong, and the final verse when it goes "I will never be anything else until my wounds are healed" Chester delivers the line with such intensity and aggression. I was hoping to hear Emily match that. Instead she turned the microphone to the audience. It was the right move for a live performance, but how do I accept you when you can't prove that this band is somewhere you belong in that performance?
I think she has great potential, the new song definitely sounds like the direction that Linkin Park has been going, and I am excited to see where they go with Emily. But I will forever miss Chester.

Having a victim of childhood sexual assault being replaced by a rape supporting Scientologist, and then censoring their YT comments of any mention of it, is an absolute disgrace for the band and Chester's legacy. Complete hard pass on that one.

I'm with excitement!

Did they bring Chester back or something?

A band dies with its lead singer.
- not a chance. an example of the top of my head is Alice in chains, Duvall has done an amazing job and their sound didn't even change, he sings nearly exactly like Layne, I had to see the list of singers to even know it wasn't the same person.

35 comments