Another older review. I'm sort of counting down to my review of A Thousand Suns, which you'll see tomorrow (I don't have a review of Minutes to Midnight, as I haven't heard it).
Having enjoyed Hybrid Theory, I decided to check out another Linkin Park album of which I have heard good things. What I found was several different things.
One of the things I noticed pretty quickly was that there is a marked improvement in instrumentation from Hybrid Theory to Meteora. While the band still specializes in heavy drum beats and enormous nu-metal guitar work, they branch out quite a bit on tracks like "Somewhere I Belong" and "Numb." Linkin Park makes use of pianos and string orchestras as well as guitar and drums. I also noticed a bit of lyrical improvement. Many songs are very introverted, and songs like "Faint" have lines that I can relate to: "Don't turn your back on me/I won't be ignored/Hear me out now/You're going to listen if you like it or not"
One of the qualities of a Linkin Park album is that it is short. It rocks out with its male genitalia out while it's here, but it goes away after just 38 minutes. It doesn't overstay its welcome; instead, it makes for a quaint experience that flows really well from song to song.
That said, the inclusion of "Session" is a little strange. As good as it is, it really sounds like it was made for the Matrix Reloaded album, which it appeared on a month later. This is likely the case, because it goes much, much better on that album; Linkin Park were likely asked to make a song for the album, and they just wanted to include it on their own album so people didn't have to pay for a bunch of songs they didn't want just for one 2:30 Linkin Park song.
"Session" stands out among the rest, but it doesn't go well with everything else when everything conforms to a theme the way the music of Linkin Park does. This is the major problem I have with this album: there's very little variety. When this happens, the most unique songs tend to turn out to be the best for me. The most notable songs here are "Faint," the traditional hip/hop-heavy track "Nobody's Listening," the traditional instrumental track "Session" and the traditional hint-of-beauty track "Numb."
One more quick note: Bennington isn't getting any better as a lead singer. He really sounds like he could use some vocal lessons throughout this album.
Overall, this is a solidly-made album made for people who really need to rock out. I don't see any reason not to pick up Minutes to Midnight or A Thousand Suns.
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