‘Battle Symphony’ does offer more of a desire for leniency with a more stimulated Bennington making a headway but still leaves a void of dissatisfaction. ‘Heavy’, featuring Kiiara, is so melodramatic one cannot stop laughing throughout the brain cell-dwindling lyricism.
Take ‘Invisible,’ with Shinoda on vocals, which evokes a hurting desperation to get on the Billboard Top 40 – even though Linkin Park have that potential and privilege already. Every other track on One More Light is conversely cringeworthy and downright capricious. After eight previous tracks of ad-nauseam eardrum torture, there’s at least a glimmer of confidence. The vibrating intro and subtle guitar is like the outro for Coldplay’s ‘Politik’ – very heart throbbing. Where do we even begin? Well, the title track is rather decent in all honesty – something positive to take away from an absolute turkey of an album. You don’t want to kick them off the bus because they’re going to leave if you come out with another album like this.” All this album represents, in retrospect, is a horrendous business move – a 100% rejection of their origins. Famous music critic Anthony Fantano (a.k.a theneedledrop on YouTube) sums it up perfectly in his video review of One More Light: “All you’re going to do is alienate the listeners that stuck with you from back in the day,” said Fantano, “You don’t want to shake that boat.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that I’m upset because it’s not another hard-and-heavy Hybrid Theory or Meteora-type record, those albums would not fly as high in the market today, but let’s also be serious about this. This is an emotionally over-the-top, insipid pop album. There’s simply no other way to put it: One More Light is bad.