Linkin Park has a new singer… and she’s a chica?!
It was announced yesterday that the nu-metal legends will be joined by Emily Armstrong, formerly the leader of rock band Dead Sara, and drummer Colin Brittain, a producer and collaborator of bands like All Time Low and A Day To Remember. This puts an end to a seven-year hiatus, which followed the tragic death by suicide of original frontman Chester Bennington in 2017. The band will release From Zero, their eighth album, on November 15, and are set to embark on a stadium tour next year.
The lead single, “The Emptiness Machine”, dropped yesterday, as part of a livestream which included performances of Linkin Park classics like “Crawling” and “One Step Closer”. With its anthemic chorus, drum machines, mournful piano interludes and lyrics like “I let you cut me open, just to watch me bleed. Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be”, the single is vintage Linkin Park, rather than a bold new reinvention.
But it’s solid stuff: as someone who really liked the band when I was eight years old, it’s a thumbs up from me. The particular brand of angst on offer might feel a little self-indulgent if you’re a fully grown adult, but at the end of the day, in these times of soaring rates of anxiety and depression, social media and late capitalism, aren’t we all living in “the emptiness machine”?
While the song isn’t breaking any new ground, the addition of Armstrong does add something new – her vocals are melodic and forceful, like a more gravelly and harsher Hayley Williams. It was a good decision to bring on board someone with a different sound (and of a different gender), instead of just hiring a Chester Bennington tribute act; it doesn’t feel like a cynical attempt to replace him or a nostalgic cash-grab, so much as a genuinely new chapter in the band’s career.