Riffology Score: 77/100
The album the world had stopped expecting Linkin Park to make: 31 minutes, eleven tracks, a new co-vocalist where Chester Bennington once stood, and the broadest commercial swing the band has taken since Meteora.
Album Details and Background
From Zero was released on 15 November 2024 through Warner Records and Machine Shop, seven years after One More Light and the death of Chester Bennington in July 2017. Mike Shinoda produced the entire record, with Colin Brittain and Brad Delson credited as co-producers, and tracking moved between EastWest Studios in Hollywood, Brittain's own Studio del Brittain in Studio City, The Stockroom in Los Angeles, and Namouche Studios in Lisbon between 2019 and 2024.
The lineup change is the news hook. On 5 September 2024 the band unveiled Dead Sara vocalist Emily Armstrong as new co-lead singer alongside drummer Colin Brittain, replacing founding drummer Rob Bourdon, who chose not to return. Founding guitarist Brad Delson played on the album but stepped back from touring, with Alex Feder taking the live guitar chair. The title itself is a double pivot: a nod to the band's 1996 pre-Hybrid Theory name Xero, and an admission that this is, functionally, a restart.
Album Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Linkin Park |
| Album | From Zero |
| Release Date | 15 November 2024 |
| Label | Warner Records / Machine Shop |
| Producer | Mike Shinoda (Colin Brittain and Brad Delson co-producing) |
| Studio | EastWest, The Stockroom, Studio del Brittain, Namouche |
| Genre | Nu metal, alternative rock, rap rock |
| Track Count | 11 (standard); 19 (Deluxe Edition, 16 May 2025) |
| Total Runtime | 31 min 54 sec |
| Lead Single | The Emptiness Machine (5 September 2024) |
| Riffology Score | 77 / 100 |
Album Analysis
From Zero is the most commercially focused, audience-pleasing record Linkin Park have made since Meteora, and on the merits of what it sets out to do it succeeds. It debuted at number one in thirteen countries, held the entire top ten of the US Hot Hard Rock Songs chart on release week, ended 2024 as Loudwire's number-one rock album of the year, and was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 68th Grammys. It is not the daring sonic statement of A Thousand Suns, but as a calling-card it lands.
Lead single The Emptiness Machine is the bridge track: Shinoda's verses and Armstrong's chorus, electronic-rock surfaces, the Meteora-into-Living-Things palette the band ran for a decade. It is also the easiest sell on rock radio, and it works exactly as designed. Heavy Is the Crown, written as the 2024 League of Legends World Championship anthem, is the heaviest post-Meteora-era track the band have released. Two Faced and Casualty are the unguarded nu-metal moments, the latter delivering the closest thing on the record to a Hybrid Theory-style scream from Armstrong.
Over Each Other is the radio-melody hinge, all clean guitars and electronic shimmer in the Living Things mould. Good Things Go closes the standard edition with the kind of restrained, introspective writing that made One More Light such a divisive record, and it is the most direct vocal-against-piano moment of Armstrong's tenure so far. Between those poles sit deep cuts Cut the Bridge, Overflow, Stained and IGYEIH, two of which (Cut the Bridge, Stained) feel a beat under-written compared to the singles.
Armstrong's range is the most-discussed thing about the record, and the closest functional analogue the band could have hired for the void Chester Bennington left: melodic alto in the verses of Over Each Other, full-throated scream in Casualty and Two Faced. She is not Chester, and the band have been careful never to claim she is. She is, on the evidence of these eleven songs, an effective Linkin Park vocalist. The criticisms are real: 31 minutes is too short for a definitive comeback statement, and the controversy that broke around Armstrong's past on the day she was announced will follow the album for years. None of it changes that the record itself is well-made.
Tracklist
- From Zero (Intro)
- The Emptiness Machine
- Cut the Bridge
- Heavy Is the Crown
- Over Each Other
- Casualty
- Overflow
- Two Faced
- Stained
- IGYEIH
- Good Things Go
Tour and Conclusion
The From Zero World Tour opened on 11 September 2024 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the night the new lineup was announced. The European leg in summer 2025 included Download, Rock Werchter, Nova Rock and a sold-out night at Wembley Stadium, with Spiritbox, AFI and Grandson among the support acts across the various legs.
Verdict: the most audience-aware Linkin Park record since Meteora, anchored by an Emily Armstrong performance that earns its place on every track, and held back from a higher score only by a runtime that ends before it has fully made its case. It is the strongest comeback any major band has delivered this decade. 77 out of 100.
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