♫ Linkin Park | A

Minutes to Midnight represented a shift in sound for Linkin Park; A Thousand Suns is both a bold expansion of that sound and a mastery of it. Only listening to the singles that make it on the radio would be missing out. While several songs are bound to be radio successes, to fully appreciate the album, it needs to be listened to as it was constructed — a 48-minute cohesive work of art. Creative arrangements, abstract beats and seemingly countless overlapping parts provide extensive depth to the meticulously crafted album.

A backdrop of static samples and thunderous percussion, give the album's opener a cinematic feel that is carried throughout the rest of the album. On top, a famous quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer describes the power of the atomic bomb as it was first witnessed. The quote reveals the meaning of the album's title and its overall theme, the responsibility that comes with power and more specifically, nuclear weapons.

To highlight specific songs would be counter to the design of the album; each song is one piece of the entire collective work. But the album is full of trademark hip-hop and rock influences and catchy Linkin Park melodies. To complement their typical style they also utilize many new elements, such as reggae influences, exotic accents, Middle Eastern-style vocals, clips from famous speeches and more.

As Chester sings in the chorus of "Burning in the Skies", Linkin Park is "swimming in the smoke of bridges [they] have burned." They didn't produce the intense rap/rock songs from previous albums that older Linkin Park fans were looking for, and they didn't write the singles that the record label was looking for. They can only hope listeners will be open-minded and appreciate the album for what it is, 48 minutes of daringly innovative music.