Linkin Park

Living Things Warner Bros**

Does anyone really listen to that shouty rap-rock hybrid anymore? Even in 2012, such music brings back memories of cut-off shorts, skateboards, Limp Bizkit, Jackass and, yes, the streamlined sensibilities of corporate nu-rock music. Linkin Park have been at this sort of thing for more than 15 years and are, according to MTV2, the sixth greatest band of the music video era - a barely comforting fact.

Living Things, their fifth album (co-produced by big gun Rick Rubin and the band's Mike Shinoda), doesn't really deviate from the formula that has made them a hugely successful rock act: interspersed with larynx-shredding hip-hop (Lost in the Echo, Lies Greed Misery) and mid-paced, bullet-pointed rock (I'll be Gone) are tremulous relationship-pondering ballads (Burn it Down, Castle of Glass). The only thing in its favour is that at a mere 37 minutes in length, the suffering is short-lived. linkinpark.com

Download track:Castle of Glass