Minutes to Midnight (Clean)

"Minutes to Midnight" is rock's most anticipated album of the year. This album redefines one of today's most adventurous, accomplished and acclaimed bands.

Minutes to Midnight stands to defend Linkin Park's status as the hardest-rockin' softies in mainstream music, flexing both plenty of decibel-heavy muscle and slabs of made-to-order, melodic radio fare. But for all its volume, Linkin Park likes to paint its heart openly on its sleeve with suspicious sonic drama, as in the palpably saccharine "Valentine's Day." Fortunately, co-producer Rick Rubin brings all these elements to pinnacle effect with the surprise "Hands Held High," on which MC Mike Shinoda drops the two best verses of his career. As major labels undergo digital growing pains, the MVI (Music Video Interactive) format of Minutes to Midnight makes a valiant attempt to raise the stakes of value-added product, packaging videos ("What I've Done" and two "making of" featurettes), lyrics, liner notes, ringtones, a photo gallery, icons, wallpaper, fan club info, and "fine art" onto one DVD. The additional toolkit and widget links registered users to more online content, including further downloads, the band's message board, an easily navigable store stocked with other Linkin Park music and swag, and more. As far as we can tell, the MVI does not install anything. Much of the content undergoes some skipping on all but the newest computers, but despite a few kinks, MVI is clearly not your father's MP3. --Jason Kirk