But then the track slips and falters back into familiar LP territory with Chester yelping on the chorus "The very worst part of you is me." proving that even artistic self-effacement can be pushed over the edge. The eerie ambiance actually enhances Shinoda's routine verbal volley. Cool faux violin sounds flit from channel to channel before careening buzz saw guitars cut through the mix and for once the all-too-familiar chirping from the turntables adds a welcome sonic boost to the proceedings. "Lying From You" is the first track on the album that hit me as something different, at least for the first 45-seconds. The track sounds a lot like their previous hits "One Step Closer" and "Crawling". "Somewhere I Belong" begins promisingly enough with shimmering, crystalline guitar, but then the familiar chirping scratches drop in while Mike Shinoda raps stiffly and Bennington's wail floats as a whisper in the background before bursting out on the chorus. "Don't Stay" runs familiar terrain, sounding rather similar to their previous album's worth of material-spiky guitars, scream therapy vocals, chirping scratch embellishment, the works. All of it rendered by Chester Bennington's monochromatic wail/scream/croon. From here we are sucked into the Linkin Park vacuum of dark emptiness and bitter angst flow. Why it warranted it's own title is beyond me. The album commences with a rather pointless "Intro" a meager 13 seconds of clanking and breaking glass. So, it was with great trepidation that I plucked the Meteora disc from the case, popped it into the computer and jacked up the volume on my Creative speaker system. When I caught them live I found that each and every song began to blur into one another and by the end of their set it was as if I'd been subjected to one long, continuous angst ridden, down-tuned, nu-metal melee. I found their debut album to be rather stiff and flat sounding. Eye catching liner notes/booklet aside, the real thrust of the CD is the music, no? So exactly how does LP's second album of new, original material hold up? For starters I should probably come clean and admit that I never got caught up in the wave of praise and hype surrounding LP when they emerged in 2000. So I think while I got extra pages I also got shortchanged on the pages that should have been part of the booklet. The only bummer is that my booklet was misprinted, containing extra pages for songs 10-13. I also like how there's a sidebar next to the printed lyrics of each song called "Notes" and wherein the band gives some background info on the recording of that specific track. The liner note booklet is fresh, thanks to some deft photography and a cool graff theme (I'm not even gonna get into the whole appropriation thing, LP jacking hip-hop culture for their liner notes-as it would take up the bulk of this review, let's just say that regardless of the subject matter, it looks sweet). I gotta give it up to whoever designed the packaging for Linkin Park's official sophomore release (let's face it, Reanimated was a remix album, not a new album).
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