40 > 80

Okay so I've listened to this a bunch since it came out. I honestly sorta hated it at first, but it's definitely grown on me over time. True Believer is far and away the best track on the record, but the rest of the album is frankly just so extremely well written and produced I can't help but give it the flowers it deserves, even if it may be near the bottom of my Biffy ranking

Two listens in
already feels like one of the albums
I need to
sit with a little while longer
before I know
how I feel

REAL REVIEW
I think the thing with this latest hot mulligan album is that it's a little bit frustrating for me because I think it's a near perfect album hidden inside a record that suffers from a couple of filler songs, some of their worst song titles to date and a little bit of the old "unfortunately your voice suffers a bit after years of screaming" ... read more

Score could go up or down but this is where I am after first listen. Really strong first 2/3 gives way to an incredibly weak back 1/3, not helped by the fact that the singles are very front loaded.

Lyrics are full of the band's normal, for lack of a better word, cringe but seems to have a little bit more of a tongue in cheek nature this time round. Instrumentally heavier and more interesting, some really fun moments and heavy breakdowns, Jim has clearly been working hard on his heavy ... read more

Y'all this is a fun, bouncy summer pop rap album. What more do you want from it?

Honestly currently my AOTY. Can't flaw it, every song slaps. Not a single weaker song, every single song has at least one lyric that made me go "ooh fuck" with how much it hit home.

Yeah this is spectacular. Not a dud song, the production is phenomenal, the lyrics are personal and vulnerable and constantly tell stories. All that stops it from being 100 is some slightly odd sequencing, having the 2/3 saddest/slowest songs in a row at the end kinda kills the pacing, but the songs are all still great so I can forgive it.

Honestly man I feel like I should enjoy this but I just didn't. In fact I got bored halfway through because every song sounded almost identical to me. I'll probably go back and finish it at some point but I skimmed through the rest of the record and it sounded exactly like all previous songs.
Every song feels like brendan going LOOK HOW FUCKING GOOD I AM AT PRODUCING. And don't get me wrong it's masterfully produced, but it just made me feel very little ultimately.

So I'm taking this record on its own merits as a Linkin park album - I am going to ignore all controversy around the vocalist and all the stuff there, focus purely on the music. To be clear - I'm not a huge nu-metal guy but wanna take this record on its own merits.

Emptiness machine - grown on me. It's fine, it's catchy, it's mid.

Cut the bridge - pretty garbo, nothing memorable

Heavy is the crown - the breakdown is great, that's the sound they should have gone ... read more