They may not be that just yet but if current plans for global domination go according to the script Linkin Park will be very soon. Stuart Clark travels to London to hear the band’s new album Meteora and finds that American rock’s hottest property are surrounded by the kind of security normally reserved for Michael Jackson
If the band’s electrifying RDS performance was anything to go by, Linkin Park are consummate masters in rocking the kids ™. What is perhaps less obvious is that their particular brand of rock sometimes rings of a certain sterility and, in some places artlessness – nowhere more so than on this live album/DVD.
We are treated to de rigeur vocal gymnastics from Chester Bennington and crunching nu-metal riffs from his band mates. But Meteora is curiously lacking in soul
To be fair to the perpetually bellyaching rap-metallers, this time they are at least moaning for the good of society and not just for personal pain - the current American regime gets a right old Bush-whacking on this record.
Metallica precede massive August all-dayer in the RDS (elsewhere on bill: Linkin Park, Mudvayne, The Deftones) with the June release of eighth LP St. Anger
It seems that Mike’s got a chip or two on his shoulder, and his heavies – including members of The Roots, Cypress Hill and Jay-Z, who is “executive producer” – are on hand to right a few wrongs that would be too personal to mention in his Linkin Park overalls. If it passed the quality bar. Which it doesn’t.
After the career revitalising collaboration with Jay Z, Linkin Park head deeper into hip-hop via Mike Shinoda’s side project. Produced by Jay himself, this is great – a fresh track with an infectious spring in its step. Sounds like the album might be worth a listen.
After the career revitalising collaboration with Jay Z, Linkin Park head deeper into hip-hop via Mike Shinoda’s side project. Produced by Jay himself, this is great – a fresh track with an infectious spring in its step. Sounds like the album might be worth a listen.
Not only are Metallica and Linkin Park making it a double-header in the RDS (and not only are more support acts en route) but this is the start of a beautiful friendship... with our newest festival, Reading Ireland
Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, George Bush, religion, torture, hangovers and, of course, the smelliest member of the band. The readers leave no stone unturned as they seek the truth
from Kirk Hammett. Your host Olaf Tyaransen
what good was rock’n’roll in 2001? No good at all – and yet we couldn’t have got through without it.
Peter Murphy reflects on a year in which some old codgers stood up to be counted and many of us lived “on songs and hope”
Mike Got Spiked are a quartet well schooled in the forge-work of the form. The rhythm section is nimble and quick, and singer Gavin McGuire has a fair set of lungs on him. They frequently carry off tricky muscle-funk licks and Rancid-like ska-metal hybrids with handbrake turn metre shifts (‘To Have You Here’, ‘Teen Idol’, ‘Find Yourself’) not to mention the odd muso fusion fuckabout (‘5 Second Heaven’, ‘All You Need’), although the songs invariably go scurrying back to the power chords and layered harmonies of a Linkin Park chorus. More worryingly, they have little to say, and no artful way of saying it.
Having done serious box-office damage in the States, Our Lady Peace are now looking to conquer Europe. Mainman Raine Maida tells Patrick Hedlund why failure is not an option
Rap-metal splicings are a hairy business, with even the better efforts (Anthrax/Public Enemy, Cypress Hill’s last couple of albums) resulting in a scoreless draw. So it is with Collision Course.
We asked the members of hotpress.com to submit questions for Korn’s kilt-wearing frontman Jonathan Davis and then locked him in a room with just a spotlight and a tape recorder
Many Irish radio fans reckon that the 2fm evening schedule is at its most exciting for years – from 6 pm, when a revitalised Dave Fanning comes on, right through to Hotpress columnist Cormac Battle signing off at 2am. One of the linchpins of that stretch is Dubliner Rick O’Shea. To celebrate his tenth year in radio we sent Jackie Hayden to ask O’Shea a few leading questions and to check out the great man’s credentials with his colleagues.
In a year that saw events which will forever change the world in which we live, selected hotpress contributors offer some personal recollections of the past twelve months. We begin by listing the critics’ choice of 2001’s single and album releases
Early speed metal incarnations, arguably the most technically demanding of all walks of rock, have done good things for this proggier-than-thou Boston quartet.
Government indignation and empty promises characterise China’s response to CD and DVD piracy, which flourishes in the country. Irish artists like U2, Westlife and Enya are bootleggers’ staple sellers. And Mary Black gets ripped off too. Mark Godfrey reports
The MTV Europe Music Awards 2002 may have been a bit of a damp squib, but an electrifying Foo Fighters, a boards-sweeping Eminem and a nekkid Christina Aguilera prevented it from being a total washout.
Apparently, Diefenbach are named after an incidental character in the Coen Brothers’ flick Fargo, a fact that in its own way elucidates what is both good and bad about this Danish act. Here is a band with mostly impeccable taste (The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkle, Air, and Mogwai are all recognisable influences). Yet, crucially, Diefenbach seem to lack any originality of their own.
With a little help from Timbaland and The Neptunes, Justin Timberlake’s debut solo album justified propelled him from N’Sync baby food salesman to purveyor of the slickest dancefloor pop since the days when Michael Jackson was black. here, via the wonders of modern technology, HP eavesdrops as the boy wonder receives a Woodward & Bernstein-style investigative enema from the Euro-press.
A stuffed-full and truly delish chocolate box of small but perfectly formed releases: the debut EP from the pretty/violent Holy Ghost Fathers; a Road Relish split single from Nina Hynes and Adrian Crowley; and - just in the nick of time! - the compilation A Quiet Riot: Songs To Save Your Life
It borrows from a lot of the mechanisms that have made this kind of music tired: the pounding guitars, the rock chick bawling, themes of pain, alienation and the forces of darkness. The difference here lies in the fusion of the pounding music with a Gothic, ballady vibe, and the ethereal, soaring voice of Amy Lee.
Lyrically, Crave possesses less of the grand gothic guignol of their debut, with a slightly more sophisticated, if not always staggeringly original, approach to wordplay
LIMP BIZKIT are a rock'n'roll phenomenon. Notching up in excess of 20 million album sales over the past two years, they're in the vanguard of the nu-metal movement that has seen guitar rock reclaiming its place at the top of the singles charts. In Madrid to catch the band live, PHIL UDELL first hears passionate words from the frontman, FRED DURST. But, amid a welter of controversy, the raging music is put on hold as Limp Bizkit's show in the Spanish capital is cancelled – an ominous foreshadowing of the events that will see their UK, German and Irish dates also sensationally cancelled
It was one of rock's most bizarre and impressive spectacles - the MANIC STREET PREACHERS live in Cuba, in front of an audience including Fidel Castro! STUART CLARK was there, and spoke to JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD about Bill Clinton, Top Of The Pops, Bono, Elian Gonzales and the band's new album
For all their talk of positive energy, St. Anger is an overwhelmingly bleak record – one that is easy to admire but hard to love, that sees them careering, admittedly often thrillingly, down a musical cul-de-sac.
An over-14’s event at the Ambassador tonight – though some crowd members look even lighter in years than that, making this possibly the youngest audience at the venue since its days hosting cinema matinees.
She Wants Revenge, the first record from the Los Angeles duo She Wants Revenge, is in many ways the generic debut: occasionally promising, frequently overreaching, rather too in-thrall to its influences and, ultimately, not wholly satisfying.
Obviously, it’s the album of the TV show, which is for the most part absolutely brilliant, where the crème de la crème of the Irish music community, along with a few adopted extras, decamped to St James’ Church, Dingle, for a week of gigs.
Music Review | Live
22% | 1 Jul 2004
Tanya Sweeney
As Metallica take to the stage amid a cacophony of fireworks, it seems that, despite their sonic brutality, their slick show is beginning to feel a little…well, inauthentic. In fact, it feels a little like Imax…but with a much better soundtrack.
Hard rock has taken on many forms, but if it's loud enough to annoy the neighbours, it should be categorised as good old-fashioned metal. Peter Murphy guides you through our choice of the Top 30 metal albums of all time.
