Oracle Online

Alas, Linkin Park has ditched their nu-metal sound and swung in the opposite direction. Their new album, Minutes to Midnight is the result of more than a year and a half of intense studio work. The title of the album is in reference to the "Doomsday Clock," a symbolic clock maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. The clock counts the "minutes" to the possible destruction of the planet based upon the threat of nuclear and technological destruction. Bennington told Rolling Stone he sees the album as a milestone for the band, "writing songs about things we wouldn't have touched a few years back."

Reunited with the rest of the band, vocalist Mike Shinoda finished his critically acclaimed side project Fort Minor and got back into the studio with renewed vigor. Shinoda explained to Billboard.com that the project was a chance for him to "return to [his] hip-hop roots.”

Minutes to Midnight's first single, "What I've Done" is a good thermometer of the album as a whole. Gone are the screams that made Bennington famous in the Goth community. Instead, the emphasis is on a blend of harmony and good old-fashioned rock and roll. DJ Mr. Hahn has largely excluded samples from the album, focusing more on the actual drumming of band member Rob Bourdon. Shinoda's backup vocals on the first single show a mastery of his vocal prowess that was hitherto limited to backup rapping behind Bennington's guttural moans.

This new direction for the band is, in large part, a response to their being labeled as just another nu-metal rap band. "People have always tried to lump us in with the whole rap/rock stereotype, but we don't intentionally want to be part of that scene," Shinoda said in a recent interview with Billboard.com. "We've always had our own personality and I think it really shows on this record." Of 150 songs that were recorded in the studio over the more than a year process of working on the album the band whittled down the number of tracks for the album to 17. “This was a year-and-a-half long process of really hard work and experimentation in the studio that yielded about 150 rough songs,” guitarist Brad Delson told Billboard.com.

The absence of the limelight works in the band's favor, with the seclusion purging the memory of the public from the nu-metal days. The new sound of the album isn't just another attempt at a has-been rap-metal band to stay in the game, but a shift of style in songwriting style that signals the end of the teenage years and a maturity that only time could bring.