You could be forgiven for assuming that the video for Linkin Park's "Final Masquerade" is the trailer for some brooding, post-apocalyptic summer blockbuster. It paints a bleak picture in a setting with an abandoned baby cries in the middle of the street, menacing white wolves, armies of mysterious hooded figures, white and black winged angels weep, cities enveloped in dust and smoke and graffiti that reads "the end is near," "trust no one" and "beware of shape shifters." You've been warned.
Add in frontman Chester Bennington's urgent vocals and you have a dramatic picture of fading hope for what could have been on the third single from the band's sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party." "The light on the horizon was brighter yesterday," he sings. "With shadow floating over, the scars begin to fade/ We said it was forever, but then it slipped away/ Standing at the end of the final masquerade."
"Final Masquerade" is a sharp, edgy, lushly harmonic heavy-hitter that falls perfectly in line with Linkin Park's lengthy string of hulking, hooky hits. The track is more like "A Thousand Suns" than "Hybrid Theory," which Linkin Park gives at their most controlled, meditative, a slowly unfurling, mid-paced anthem built around simmering keyboards, unfussy, low-tempo beats and palm-muted guitar. This heavy-hitting song features one of Bennington's finest vocal performances on the album.
The five-minute clip was directed by Mark Pellington, the famed auteur behind such iconic videos as Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" and U2's "One," as well as Demi Lovato's "Skyscraper" and Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up." It features Pellington's signature mix of vivid imagery and haunting, slightly out of focus, dream-like flashes of dread and mystery. The video is a graphic landscape more colorful than the majority of the band's videos from their most recent album, "The Hunting Party," but the message isn't any lighter: the video shows apocalyptic scenes, death, sorrow and outrage.
Add in frontman Chester Bennington's urgent vocals and you have a dramatic picture of fading hope for what could have been on the third single from the band's sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party." "The light on the horizon was brighter yesterday," he sings. "With shadow floating over, the scars begin to fade/ We said it was forever, but then it slipped away/ Standing at the end of the final masquerade."
"Final Masquerade" is a sharp, edgy, lushly harmonic heavy-hitter that falls perfectly in line with Linkin Park's lengthy string of hulking, hooky hits. The track is more like "A Thousand Suns" than "Hybrid Theory," which Linkin Park gives at their most controlled, meditative, a slowly unfurling, mid-paced anthem built around simmering keyboards, unfussy, low-tempo beats and palm-muted guitar. This heavy-hitting song features one of Bennington's finest vocal performances on the album.
The five-minute clip was directed by Mark Pellington, the famed auteur behind such iconic videos as Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" and U2's "One," as well as Demi Lovato's "Skyscraper" and Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up." It features Pellington's signature mix of vivid imagery and haunting, slightly out of focus, dream-like flashes of dread and mystery. The video is a graphic landscape more colorful than the majority of the band's videos from their most recent album, "The Hunting Party," but the message isn't any lighter: the video shows apocalyptic scenes, death, sorrow and outrage.
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