In the atmospheric stillness of ‘Overflow’, one of the quieter tracks on Linkin Park’s first album in seven years, you can almost hear the echo of one of the band’s most recognizable melodies: the keyboard intro that precedes Chester Bennington’s unforgettably raw (and arguably rawest) performance on ‘Crawling’. You might have to squint to make the connection – pitch and speed it up, maybe – but it’s something I can’t personally shake off whenever this section of the track comes on, a strikingly liminal moment on an album that unsurprisingly aims for tightness and balance. “It’s all the same to me,” Mike Shinoda sings into the void, a line that’s characteristically broad enough to be universal while also living in a perfect vacuum. Though careful in delivering every element any kind of Linkin Park fan might expect, From Zero can often feel like that: vacuous and derivative despite its best intentions and calculated curation.
It’s inevitable that past iterations of Linkin Park haunt every corner of From Zero. Fans have traced less subtle callbacks than the hazy memory of an early hit, from the sample of a Xero demo tucked at the end of ‘Overflow’ to the hallmarks of their debut single, ‘One Step Closer’, mirrored in ‘Two Faced’. Xero was the band’s original name from 1996 to 1999, giving the album title a double meaning, a realization that dawns on new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong in a moment that serves as the record’s intro. Yet “from nothing” is in itself also ambivalent, whether alluding to the band’s origins or the current lineup – including drummer Colin Brittain, who replaced founding member Rob Bourdon – rebuilding themselves from the ground up after Bennington’s suicide in 2017. The 22-second opening track cuts off before Armstrong can offer her own interpretation, letting the rest of the songs do the talking.
If avoiding – or positively inviting – comparisons to Bennington wasn’t enough of a challenge, Armstrong’s involvement muddled Linkin Park’s comeback campaign due to her history with Scientology and complaints from Bennington’s family. Of course, lead single ‘The Emptiness Machine’ still found immediate commercial success, becoming the band’s only song to debut at No. 4 in the UK; it didn’t hurt that the song harked back to the radio-friendly sound of Meteora and Minutes to Midnight’s biggest hits. More importantly, both as a single and as the song kicking off the album, it succeeds in proving Armstrong’s capabilities – not just as a singer but also as a dynamic new component within the group’s established structure. Shinoda tactfully leads the way before Armstrong bolts through the second verse with restless fury; it may not be enough to defy skeptics, but it’s an impressive entrance.
Whether inhabiting a pensive or guttural mode – and there is a lot of switching back and forth – Armstrong’s delivery never feels forced; that’s a problem that lies with the songwriting. Linkin Park have often gotten away with broad-strokes lyricism thanks to their knack for channeling edgy feeling with unique pathos and precision, but very little about the text or subtext around From Zero sticks, leaving behind a hollow ache. “Say what’s underneath,” Armstrong pleads on ‘Over Each Other’, but the songs barely scratch the surface; especially that one, being about interpersonal frustration and miscommunication, should at least bristle with a bit more tension, but it just sounds exhausted. Like every song here that reaches for the pop-leaning sound of One More Light, the life’s drained out of whatever real emotion inspired it, seemingly for the sake of melody.
Thankfully, this isn’t always the case with the gnarlier songs. To an extent, From Zero feels like Linkin Park – following their massive reissue celebrating Hybrid Theory – moving from merely acknowledging their influence to trying to showcase their vitality by way of searing riffs and soaring hooks. When they’re not striving for a forgettable middle ground (‘Cut the Bridge’) or exercising blatant nostalgia (‘Two Faced’), you can actually hear their case. ‘Casualty’ may be a gift for those preferential to 2014’s heavily messy The Hunting Party, but it’s also a standout hardcore track amplified by Armstrong’s coarse aggression, even if there’s an awkward strain to Shinoda’s co-vocal. Their chemistry doesn’t fully pay off until the album’s final and best ballad, ‘Good Things Go’, where the production is punchy yet nicely textured, melodically testing the upper limits of Armstrong’s vocal range to underscore its titular point. Even when it does spark new life into familiar sonic territory, and as natural as the band’s new additions sound, From Zero is too ultimately grating and self-aware to break out of its own box. Controversies aside, it’s tonally muddled, too. “The dark’s too vivid, the light’s not there,” Shinoda raps at one point, a theme that’s pervaded Linkin Park since the very beginning. You just wish their latest effort shined a little brighter.