Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In a way this is a good moment for Linkin Park to return. The Californians are flag-bearers for nu metal, a crossover genre that pick-and-mixed from heavy metal, rap, rock and pop. Hugely popular in the early 2000s — Linkin Park’s debut, Hybrid Theory, sold 32mn copies globally — nu metal was treated dismissively by critics and purists. The sound was judged too polished, the angst seen as overcooked.Time has blunted the derision. These days nu metal basks in the warm glow of noughties nostalgia. But in Linkin Park’s case, the nostalgia isn’t straightforward: the band of today is markedly different from the one that existed before.Their new album, From Zero, is their first since their singer, Chester Bennington, died by suicide in 2017. His successor is Emily Armstrong of LA band Dead Sara. Reactionary complaints at the recruitment of a woman can be easily brushed aside — but Armstrong has also proved controversial due to her alleged links to Scientology. Unease at her appointment was compounded when Bennington’s son, Jaime, accused the band of erasing his father’s legacy by continuing without him.Some fans agree. For them, the band’s reactivation seven years after Bennington’s tragic death is akin to Nirvana returning in 2001 with a stand-in for Kurt Cobain. From Zero offers a pithy, precisely targeted response. Its 10 tracks last just over 30 minutes. They sound focused and punchy. Armstrong slots neatly into place, a bawler with powerful, well-controlled pipes.She shares vocal duties with Mike Shinoda, Bennington’s former foil at the microphone. He is Linkin Park’s singer-rapper, multi-instrumentalist and main songwriter. “I let you cut me open just to watch me bleed,” he sings in “The Emptiness Machine”. Then a hammering riff strikes up and Armstrong makes her grand entrance, hollering the same line with teeth-bared ferocity.In “Heavy Is the Crown”, Shinoda raps earnestly while Armstrong unleashes a 15-second long guttural roar. Her screamo style works best on harder fare such as punk-rock belter “Casualty” and melodic metal stomper “Two Faced”. When the pace slows on pop-rock ballad “Good Things Go”, the generic nature of the music is exposed.Tumultuous relationships and fraught states of mind recur, but the scenarios are vague. The words are less interesting for what is said than how they sound. The interplay between Armstrong and Shinoda works well, a male-female vocal contrast that brings a new slant to the familiar Linkin Park sound.★★★☆☆ ‘From Zero’ is released by Warner Records
