Mike Shinoda - Post Traumatic - Amazon.com Music (original) (raw)

Mike Shinoda releases first effort in the massive wake after losing his best friend and band mate, Chester Bennington.

(Review starts on Paragraph 3)

Linkin Park never had a career crisis, but with the release of One More Light, they had switched gears on the music industry. Releasing a vocally powerful and musical departure from their prior efforts, One More Light seemed poised to be a huge endeavor for the band. However, months after the album released, Chester Bennington, legendary lead singer, took his own life. It rocked the musical world to it's core and while Linkin Park fans around the world mourned the loss of a voice of a generation, the band itself suffered in relative silence. They released statements being grateful for the fans support and genuine appreciation for fan tributes to Chester, they stayed silent for some time. Finally, they took the stage in the LA Bowl to celebrate the life and mourn the loss of their friend.

It was powerful for sure, but Mike had played a small snippet of a piece he was working on trying to work through his personal tragedy. Little did anyone know that one snippet would culminate into Post Traumatic. When I first heard the opening track, accompanied by the self filmed music video, I was struck with a lot of emotion. This was a Mike you'd never seen before, raw, vulnerable and conflicted. His emotion pours into every song and the album organically follows his grieving process, spot lighting his sadness, fear, anger, uncertainty and finally a sort of peace and recovery.

I would have to say, I've been listening to Mike and his work since Hybrid Theory. I own every mainline Linkin Park album, Chester's solo efforts Dead by Sunrise and the EP he did with Stone Temple Pilots. I also own Mike's solo effort Fort Minor, which I enjoyed the unique and standout music. Even in owning all that effort, Post Traumatic has some of Mikes most unique and well written music I've heard. It's a beautiful mix of the unique electronic sounds in previous LP albums, mixed with guitar, keys, sound effects, drums and bass. It never sounds like a mess and the composition is truly incredible.

Post Traumatic is a intimate piece of music that is surprisingly in depth of Mike's life after July 2017. The opening track is perfectly chosen, having some of the most desperate and sorrowful music on the album, however, Hold It Together, middle track of the album, has some of the most direct lyrics. Halfway through the song, there is lyrics that describe going to the birthday party of a friends kid. He describes the appreciation of someone relating with his situation, but it makes him feel worse. He then describes making a joke that was too dark to be funny and how he should have never come. It's goose bump evoking story telling, accompanied with a mix of rap and spoken word vocals.

More than half of the album, Mike spends his time switching between a mix of spoken word that is part rap and his clean singing. It's heavy, but as I said, recovery is part of this journey and Ghosts serves as a turning point in the journey. The music is almost euphoric as he is sets up being talked to by someone who believes in the paranormal. Mike himself says he does not disbelieve or believe in it, but he finds it interesting and has heard many peoples ghost stories. It's a definite change up from the prior 9 tracks and continues from here on out. Starting with Lift Off, the tracks almost take a Fort Minor and A Thousand Suns turn, Mike rapping with aggression, confidence and urgency. His lyrics shift from being uncertain of his future, grief stricken and lost to looking to the future to acceptance of his loss, confidence in his skills and acknowledging it can't be changed.

Post Traumatic is a fantastic musical journey that I can say I've never experienced with an artist. Linkin Park were of course a unique, massive and creative band, but Mike delivers something truly special. In the wake of loss, sadness and anger, it seems Mike experienced that perfect storm of artistic creativity that is so often born in the waves of tragedy. What started as something so basic as grasping for peace and to cope during such a painful time, blossomed into what may be Mike Shinoda's magnum opus.

No one, not even Shinoda self admittedly, knows what the future holds for himself or Linkin Park, but Post Traumatic is here now and that's an important first step.

No matter if you are a fan deeply affected by Chester's unexpected passing, a casual fan of Linkin Park or Fort Minor and maybe someone who doesn't care for any, Post Traumatic is an album that needs to be heard.