Karma and Effect

KARMA AND EFFECT: Just the sound of it gets you thinking...what is the effect of karma? Well, if its anything like the sound of this album...haha give me some of it baby!!!

Released on May 24th, 2005, it is hard to believe that this CD is already two years old. Karma and Effect is one of the best hard rock albums in recent history...it's right up there with the likes of Staind's "Break the Cycle" and Chevelle's "Wonder What's Next." For the hard rock fan, this album delivers, and delivers HARD.

The first song, "Because of Me" starts off with crushing guitar riffs and a gutteral scream by lead singer Shaun Morgan which leads into the first paragraph of the song and then onto the chorus. One of the best choruses in modern rock history, Morgan sings "it's because of me, RIGHT?!?!?." Definitely a great opener.
The next song, also the first single, named "The Remedy", shot to the #1 spot on the mainstream modern rock chart. Featuring excellent guitar shredding and hooks, this song delivers all that a modern rock fan could ask for, pounding drums, authoritative guitars, and the occasional short scream.
The third song, also a single, brings an acoustic guitar into play during the main singing parts of the song, but quickly switches to the crunching and wailing of electric guitars. Named "Truth," this song continues the hard sound that permeates the entire album. Again, Morgan screams the last three words on the song..."I'M BEATEN DOWN!!!!" in dramatic fashion.
The fourth song, again another single, "The Gift", starts off with almost a sad sounding electric guitar solo, which leads into Morgan singing, then ascends into a chorus where the crushing guitars take over again. This very diverse song puts its parts together well, and "The Gift" is another top notch song.
The 5th offering on the song, "Burrito", is rumored to have gotten its name while Shaun Morgan was watching TV in which he learned that Ozzy Osbourne had a craving for the food by the same name. Although the song never mentions the word burrito, the song sounds much like the rest of the album. Some people may think that repetition on a CD is a bad thing, however, when you have a sound that you want to stick to, you are bound to sound a bit repetitive.

The rest of the CD sounds very much like the previous songs, all of which rock hard and sound great. One of the songs, "Diseased", is a modern rock masterpiece. Starting off with a slow, mournful sound, the song progresses into crushing riffs and a period of gutteral screaming by Morgan. The last song on the CD, "Plastic Man", doesn't end for quite some time, because after the song is apparently over, a hidden acoustic track emerges. A very nice suprise to a overly hard rock CD.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

What the...???

Almost everyone agrees that change, used in the correct proportions, is almost always a good thing. However, everyone also agrees that change is NOT always good.

Linkin Park should have learned that by now...

With 2003's Meteora, Linkin Park was officially a jauggernaut in the music world. Meteora was as close to musical perfection as can be accomplished, with 4 huge hits and a remainder of songs that could have served as singles on their on accord. Every Linkin Park fan was eagerly awaiting their next CD, wondering what the nu-metal pioneers could come up with next. When word of a new album surfaces, news that came as a shock to me as well as many others accompanied it; LP announced that the "nu-metal" sound was totally gone. My first thought was "what the hell are they thinking?" It is totally moronic to abandon the very sound that has gotten them famous in the first place.

So I thought maybe they were just joking around and were actually working on a great hard rock album. My God how wrong I was...

Their new CD, Minutes to Midnight, is a perfect example of a once powerful and compelling band going to hell in a handbasket. No nu-metal sound? I could play a tune on my guitar that sounds better than this album, and I suck at playing guitar!!! Besides the fact that there is hardly any rock sound here at all, LP also somewhere got the great idea to become the next ultra-political- emo rockers, ala System of a Down and Disturbed. Even I have to hand it to those bands though, because they actually kept their balls on and continued to rock hard while delivering their political messages.

There are so many things wrong with this CD it isn't funny. Mike Shinoda? My God, that poor guy almost never gets a chance to even open his mouth on this album. He leads the vocals in ONE, that's right, ONE song. He has small parts in other songs, but it is absolutely nothing compared to the first two albums. It's pretty dang bad that the man who sings on pretty much all of Linkin Park's greatest hits hardly gets a chance on this album. No wonder he started up Fort Minor. Instead, the 15-year old mental mentality of Chester Bennington reigns supreme on this album, which is far from being a good thing. "PUT ME OUT OF MY F***ING MISERY!!!" screams Bennington on the very adult-language theme song that is "Given Up." As I sit here listening to the song...I would bet that some would like to actually put him out of his misery, because this album sounds like the entire band is in misery. At points on the album, it actually sounds like the Fallout Boy or 30 Seconds to Mars veil will be ripped away and the Linkin Park sound we all know and love will come roaring forth. Sadly, this never happens.

To make matters worse, as mentioned in the above paragraph, the new cd comes with a nice shiny PARENTAL ADVISORY sticker slapped on it. Apparently they hung out with Jay-Z way too much and the rap lyrics rubbed off on them, because there are many F bombs scattered throughout this CD. Places in songs where F words don't even really fit in, yet they are there.

This CD is unspeakably awful, yet somehow CD sales are going strong for this album somehow. In the meantime, the true Linkin Park fans are ripping the new CD to shreds on the comments section of LP's Myspace site. Many fans are really not happy with the direction that the band has chosen to go down, and you can count me as one of them.