"I didn't want to scream any more," Linkin Park's Chester Bennington told the Guardian in 2011, explaining the nu-metal giants' unlikely stylistic detour towards political electronica. Just three years on, the scream is back, along with the guitars, as Bennington, rapper Mike Shinoda and guests ranging from Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello to rap pioneer Rakim deliver furious blasts against war, oppression, apocalypse and other very bad things.
Shinoda's desire to make a (rather expensively produced) punk rock record and Bennington's more ethereal electropop segments don't always make comfortable bedfellows, but Rob Bourdon's terrific drumming means the energy never lets up. Cliches abound ("You don't know what you've got until it's gone"), but the piano instrumental Drawbar is lovely, and Rebellion places western pop's "imitations of rebellion" within a global context. Linkin Park certainly know their audience, and here delicately navigate the gulf between their own aspirations and a fanbase who will celebrate the band's loud return to rocking hard.
