Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory (2000) is one of the better artifacts of early ‘00s nu-metal, a solid pop record hidden beneath layers of screaming and electro-rapping. If every genre no matter how tenuous produces at least a few good albums, future generations might reconsider Hybrid Theory on its own terms.

On subsequent albums, fine follow-up Meteora (2003) aside, the band has let that pop influence shine more clearly, to diminishing returns. Instead of being the best nu-metal band, singles like “What I’ve Done” and “Waiting for the End” have turned Linkin Park into the third or fourth best radio alt-rock act. Not a great place to be.

Living Things picks and chooses from all they’ve done before, with a few left-turns (“Victimized” somehow successfully mashes thrash-metal, electro-rock and pop-rap). You could say it lacks cohesion, or simply satisfies a wider audience; anyone turned off by Chester Bennington’s whining could dig his soulful side (“Skin to Bone”), those who question Mike Shinoda’s rapping skills should hear the too-brief “Lies Greed Misery” and see him in a different light. In those ways Living Things builds upon, while not entirely reinventing, their career thus far.



R. KELLY: Write Me Back
RCA, 46 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5

In perhaps his most memorable routine comedian Aziz Ansari classifies R. Kelly as “a brilliant R&B singer slash crazy person.” Kelly’s eccentricity is apparent in videos, concerts, interviews, and public disgraces, but less in his actual music. Curious considering he has retained tight artistic control over it throughout his career.

Write Me Back, a soulful companion piece to Love Letter (2010) and a placeholder for the promised Black Panties (out next year, allegedly) doesn’t change that. It’s smooth, uplifting and devoid of more explicit material. The result is broadly appealing, a successful emulation of ‘70s pop radio that, without Kelly’s reputation, wouldn’t last a minute on today’s Billboard charts.

That soft touch, however, works in its favour; it’s been a while since I’ve heard love songs as genuinely innocent as “Love Is” and “Lazy Sunday” or a bedroom jam like “Green Light” that didn’t feel like the soundtrack to a phone sex line commercial. 

Write Me Back is successful enough in its chivalry and restraint that one could forget its creator has a past littered with such scandal.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS: Worship
Dead Oceans, 45 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5

The cover of Worship, third album from New York’s A Place to Bury Strangers, appears to show a skyscraper descending downward into hell. That’s a pretty harsh image to live up to, even from a band called A Place to Bury Strangers who’re following up an album titled Exploding Head.

Regrettably, though the band has a whole bunch of sonic tricks to justify dark posturing (emulating gunfire on “Alone” for one) their songwriting seems like little more than a blueprint to some mind-melting live performance. No amount of effects-pedal trickery can compensate for the thinness of “You Are the One.” There’s a line between brooding detachment and incoherent mumbling, one tracks “Fear” and “Worship” cross intermittently.

Bands that wrap their arms around darkness like A Place to Bury Strangers need to remember that albums are meant to stand alone, in multiple contexts. Though of course one can’t expect any artist to create something suitable for all environments, there’s a stubborn specificity in APTBS’ music that can make their recorded work feel like a secondary concern. Either way, I’m sure they’re fantastic in concert.