Linkin Park - Living Things REVIEW

Revised: 2nd May 2013

Linkin Park come back with an explosion on Living Things, the energy of Hybrid Theory controlled with an iron cape, the classic rock edge of Minutes To Midnight returns and most importantly for young adult casual fans, a very mature travelling of the road where Meteora was headed.

Living Things is a lyric focused album at heart, 

The album begins with a rough sounding wash of synth followed by Dubstep influenced loud sub bass/synths and crunchy power chords taking the lead along with Mike's fantastic verses and delivery, LOST IN THE ECHO will go down as number 1 in many fans' favourites for years to come and knock any doubt caused by A Thousand Suns into the water.
Chester Bennington's signature screams return to tease as Mike comes back to hit us with more fist pumping verses, we realise that we aren't waiting for any choruses, this song is chiselled to perfection by the sound scientists.

Linkin Park return to the familiar with songs such as IN MY REMAINS or I'LL BE GONE, both of which stand confidently alongside the band's 2007 Minutes To Midnight with their rock style and dynamic nature, IN MY REMAINS is perhaps one of the best songs of the band's career and it's surprising that this wasn't released as a single.

Lead single BURN IT DOWN is a great fusion of pop music and industrial, bringing back the simple pad melodies that were present in the band's earlier work, such as Crawling or Numb, this song will excite any fans of that era, but unfortunately Mike Shinoda's last rap verse falls flat and in turn hurts the song.

LIES GREED MISERY is a song that you will either love or hate, and it boils down to what you prefer between sound and lyrical content, this overmastered/badly produced song, while simple.. is great lyrically "I wanna see you choke on your lies! swallow up your greed! suffer all alone in your misery!" alongside a very heavy pop/club anthem which sonically sounds more of a celebration than a revenge story, which is what makes this such an interesting number.

SKIN TO BONE in my opinion, is the creative highlight of the album.
From the strange and interesting percussive synths, to Mike and Chester's vocal duet throughout, this is the style that I hope the band continue into "Oohhhh.. Skin to bone and steel to rust" Mike and Chester harmonize together as the song comes to a close with a Fort Minor-esque tribal drum solo.

Linkin Park bring the heavy again with VICTIMIZED, definitely the bands heaviest song ever.
This ode to punk is extremely heavy on the drums, Rob Bourdon flams through with ferocious authority and dominates this short but powerful song, another revenge story.
"Victimized! Victimized! Never again! Victimized!"
Though this song may provoke ridicule from the more bitter of Linkin Park's enemies, you can't deny that this song is a nation sized bundle of energy.

The biggest surprise on the album comes in the form of ROADS UNTRAVELLED, metal and glass objects make up the subtle but wonderful percussion as we are reminded not to weep for the mistakes we have made. "Weep not for Roads Untravelled, weep not for sights unseen" Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda harmonize together vibrantly as the rest of the band come together to resonate a song that will bring fans from all over the world together in their longing for letting go of the past.

"Take me down to the river bend" Mike sings as the band enter a new era on CASTLE OF GLASS, we are taken into a space clouded by futuristic synths, catchy drumming by Rob Bourdon and Chester's voice sweeping in and out as we soar into the heart of southern america, an interesting new song which expresses the new tool in the band's box, folk music on acid.

The freshest but strangest song on the album is the Run DMC homage/lullaby UNTIL IT BREAKS which takes cues from the roots of hip hop, but turns the table when Chester interrupts with "Bring me the strength of the rising sun, bring me to kingdom come" followed by the surprise lead vocal debut of guitarist Brad Delson, this song takes more risks than anything we encountered on A Thousand Suns, while seeming pre - 2000 Linkin Park at times with the subleties that support Mike's rap verses.

 The closer, POWERLESS, has Chester singing from the heart about a lover who took his trust and left him behind "You'll never know what I became because of you." With a signature Shinoda beat controlling the tempo of the emotion as we are sent into a climax of all of the elements that make Linkin Park such a special group.

This is an album which remains cohesive as each hit plays, takes the conventional album layout and breaks it with the quality of the music across the board, I predict that whilst much of the Hybrid Theory fanbase will be longing for more of the world of which Living Things came from, they will find it easier to dig back into the older albums without any feelings of grief, it's come full circle now, i'm very interested in what the future holds for this gem of a rock band.

Easily the best record this year so far, though competition has been scarce.

Rustic's score: 84/100

Scores out of 10:

Catchiness: 8.4
Production: 8.8
Creativity: 7.2
Lyrics: 8.4
Cohesion: 9.1

Dear Esther - REVIEW

A breath of fresh air which really made you start to absorb the world around you, instead of putting you into an objective based or time based state of mind.
The story and dialogue is wonderfully written, with bright language that sweeps in and out of conciousness like the water around you, right from the start you accept it for what it is, you are unable to jump or interact with the world, but why should you need to?
Probably the most immersive game I have ever played aside from Grand Theft Auto 4 and Final Fantasy X, this is a massive intake of air which the industry has been waiting so long for underneath it's poorly designed travesties, I wish those responsible for the story and visuals continue their wonderful work and eventually inject it into the mainstream.

The Legend Of Zelda - Skyward Sword REVIEW

A strong step in the right direction for the Zelda series, and although they have once again failed to make a worthy sequel to A Link To The Past (best game of all time) I am slightly satisfied with what has been made this time around.

First of all, lets ignore that Twilight Princess even existed, it is an embarassment to the series, cutscene after cutscene of green, brown and boring; and who the hell thought of werewolves? At least be original if you're going to screw things up, was it even werewolves? I don't even remember nor care.

Now onto the latest one, Skyward Sword.

I don't like boring on about crap that you read with your eyes half open, wondering what else you could be doing with your life so I will make this short, as I will do in future with these short reviews.

What I don't like about Skyward Sword:

1. Cutscenes/conversations take WAY TOO LONG,
I have to hold down the goddamn A button until it scrolls through the text, before pressing A at the end to skip, why not just skip straight to the end of the text when I press A in the first place?!
(When you play the part near the start with the fucking 'kiki' snorlax things you will know what I mean)

2. Everyone except Link and Zelda, look weird.

3. Sometimes puzzles can slow down the pace of the game,
on a few occassions so far, I have really had no idea what to do for a good 5 - 20 minutes, and it seems any intelligent challenge between dungeons is an absolute pain in the ass!
(Wait until you encounter the eyeball, time yourself and do not use google!)

4. The voiceovers.
look, I don't appreciate the stupid deep voice that Link has been given, he sounds like a 34 year old angry samurai, it's just not right! Give him some sort of teen-boy whiny luky skywalker voice, that's how Link should sound!

5. Loading times.
The one I am most disappointed with, you jump off the edge of the main town, call your bird, he comes and catches you as the music begins to build and!


*White screen for 7 seconds*


You're flying through the sky! You see a nice little island to land on that you can't get to on foot so you swoop down, jump off your bird and a few meters from the ground..

*White screen for 7 seconds*


You are now falling into the main town, no where near the fucking island you aimed for which you imagined might have had a heart to increase your health capacity, but no, you are right back at the town and you now have to zig zag your way down to the damn landing platform to try again. (This will happen every time so don't waste your time trying)

6. WHY IS THIS GAME AIMED AT 10 YEAR OLDS!?

A Link To The Past was dark, it was adventurous, the music was epic and groundbreaking for the time, yet no matter how old you get, you go into those dungeons and those boss sprites will put you on edge, you transport into a whole new world and you will find that you are filled with excitement/some sort of fear, wondering if you have missed anything along the way.

Skyward Sword on the other hand, will play some fucking friendly/children cartoon music, even when you land in a world filled with lava and steep looking volcanoes!!!!

I'm pissed!

Calm down Rustic, remember the good points.

Sigh... here we are.

1. The control system is good! You control the sword with your right hand, you move the wiimote around and the sword will follow your every move, you can even turn the wiimote and sword does too, you go up to small trees, you cut them, and I find that feeling coming back, the feeling you got when you slashed those bushes in LTTP, not the same, not as stress relieving but still reminiscent. The rest I can't be bothered to talk about, it's average but the sword thing makes it much better!

2. Link looks like Link!

Not tall and skinny like in Twilight Princess.
Not small like a toddler like Ocarina.
and not some cell shaded piece of shit!
But what we see in those LTTP instruction manuals, THE REAL LINK!
This instantly makes it all so much better.



3. The graphics are moderately good, I am especially fond of the cartoony background filter thing they have going on, it starts to blend Skyward and LTTP graphically almost.
Except for the chests, why turn good chests blue?! Why not just keep all chests the same colour and just vary their sizes?
Also, they have changed how the heart pickups look, I mean when you get a new heart for your health meter it has all of these hearts intertwined into one big design, it just looks dumb, it's like you're buying a mcdonalds meal, they cram all of these burgers into the bag and you get outside, you look in the bag and there is one! Dumbest design idea ever.

What...the...fuck!!! Just look at it!

This is what i'm talking about, look some cool person even got tats.




Basically it's Ocarina Of Time with visual elements from LTTP and its concept art, with a really cool sword thing going on which will keep you happy, not to mention some fun little gadgets in your inventory, dungeons are more clever than before, but some of the issues you would have had with Twilight Bullshit are still present, don't worry, Nintendo are getting there; slowly but surely.

How do I promote this shit?

I've been away for a few days so forgive me, when I know how to get people to come here I will start writing again :)

Hello

This is my blog, i've been tempted to make one for a while.
I'll be posting all sorts of cool things over the course of this humble blog's existence; horrible things.

How might I begin this blog though I wonder? I've got nothing to rant about, really I don't.

So..... yeah.

Go do some stuff, come back and there might be something here, you ridiculous man/woman.