As someone who grew up loving Linkin Park, I am hesitantly excited. The single they released is actually pretty good - The Emptiness Machine.
She was great. She’s able to hit those vocal ranges that Chester was able to. Kinda sounds like him too in certain songs.
Looking forward to this new era of LP.
Thanks for the link! I agree - a few songs there were some notable “slumps” compared to what I would have expected from Chester, but there were also some parts that came across a little better? She has a great voice for the singing parts, and a really respectable scream.
Waiting for the End almost made me cry.
She did a good job but this really made me appreciate how unique Chester Bennington’s voice was.
Edit: I take it back. She’s a Scientologist. Gross.
You realized it before this 😉.
But agree with you. I do like what I’m hearing, so take the rest of this comment as microcritique.
… it sounds too polished to me. It sounds too much like their later albums (fine), but i feel like I’m not given any time to fall in love with the raw vocals and the raw sound. It just sounds too polished out of the gate, especially for a live show.
I think the underproduced to overproduced sound happens with everyone, so not knocking it, but id really love to hear some more raw (less overproduced) music with this band and this singer.
That being said I’ve only listened to the first song! Ive bookmarked it for this weekend .
Listened to a few songs then gave up She really needs to stop trying to mimic Chester and just be herself. When she lets herself sing it’s decent. She has a good range but nowhere near the power that Chester had. It’s just not there and never will be.
I’d rather hear her make the songs her own in her most comfortable range.
I’m with excitement!
I saw the live performance of Somewhere I Belong, and the final verse when it goes “I will never be anything else until my wounds are healed” Chester delivers the line with such intensity and aggression. I was hoping to hear Emily match that. Instead she turned the microphone to the audience. It was the right move for a live performance, but how do I accept you when you can’t prove that this band is somewhere you belong in that performance?
I think she has great potential, the new song definitely sounds like the direction that Linkin Park has been going, and I am excited to see where they go with Emily. But I will forever miss Chester.
Hot take: I hate when bands switch their singer or a lot of their members and still stick to the old band name.
The only reason to do it is to get the instant reach, but you will always be sandbagging on a name that means something else and a lot of fans will only compare your new lineup to the old one.
Making a new band name means you have to start fresh, but sometimes you can already take some relationships and prestige into your new project (Mike shinoda is a household name outside of Linkin park) and no one will expect a specific style out of you. It just feels like the better thing to do in most circumstances.
I’m torn. I wanna like them and I wish them the best, but this name brings back memories and also expectations. It sticks like tar to every new release and even though that’s not fair, it won’t change until they rebrand into something new.
I agree completely. Alice in Chains is my favorite band, but I really don’t think seeing them live would be worth it because they’d be doing all of Layne’s songs without him. I know that in that case, Jerry also contributed a great deal to the lyrics and sound, but without Layne something feels missing…
But then you also get bands that had Chris Cornell in them and they’d all equally be just as awesome. Or how A Perfect Circle still basically sounds like TOOL.
She’s a Scientologist. Yuck.
