Review by Daniel for Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (2000)
Despite this album being one of the biggest selling in metal history, I'd never actually heard it until a couple of days ago. Sure, I was well aware of the few mega-hit singles but had always assumed that Linkin Park were probably none of my business. This changed a bit when I explored their 2003 "Meteora" sophomore album (4/5) as a feature release for The Gateway as it took me by complete surprise & it was at that point that I decided that I needed to check out the debut as well, particularly as I'd witnessed the band performing live at the 2013 Soundwave Festival in Sydney & found them to be more than tolerable & quite professional with five of the tracks included having been drawn from their debut.
The result of my long-awaited first visit to "Hybrid Theory" is that it's not a bad record, not as mature as "Meteora" it has to be said but worth a listen nonetheless. Once again it's the vocals of Chester Bennington that carry this band as he was a rare talent that possesses the uncanny knack for hitting on memorable & quite epic melodic hooks. The rapped vocals are again the obvious weak point but there are only a couple of tracks where Chester fails to resurrect things (see "Be Myself" & "Forgotten"). There are a few genuine highlights here though & they come in the form of the big hits "In The End" & "Crawling" as well as the downtempo instrumental hip hop change-up track "Cure For The Itch" which reminded me of artists like Moby or Groove Armada. Almost every track includes a big chunky, rhythmic guitar riff that will have alternative metal fans jumping around too & it's invariably performed in super-tight fashion.
"Hybrid Theory" didn't actually finish too far off higher honors but the deciding factor was that I was left with a general feeling of "Hey, this isn't too bad" rather than the "Well, I'll be damned! This is some high quality shit!" feeling I got after checking out "Meteora". The fact that I was reminded of Limp Bizkit at a few points is definitely one of the reasons that I couldn't quite get myself up to those heights but I don't think there's any question that Linkin Park are playing at higher levels than those guys. "Hybrid Theory" is the very definition of the nu metal genre though so if you find that term to be a turn-off then it's probably not for you, particularly when it sits on the more accessible end of the nu metal spectrum. The hooks are certainly there though & that's an important thing to remember when it comes to your more commercially focused metal releases.