American rock band Linkin Park announced on Thursday that they will be back with a new vocalist, Emily Armstrong; a new album due out on November 15 called ‘From Zero’ and an international tour that will begin next week in California.
The surprise announcement marks a “new era” following the 2017 suicide of band leader Chester Bennington and after the other four members, friends since their youth, began reuniting in recent years, Live Nation said in a statement.
At these meetings, they invited other friends to their studio and “found a special affinity” with Emily Armstrong, from the group Dead Sara, and with the drummer Colin Brittain, with whom they spent more and more hours until they concluded that both would be part of a new Linkin Park, he adds.
“Before Linkin Park, our first name as a band was Xero. The title of this album refers to both this humble beginning and the path we are currently on,” rapper Mike Shinoda said in the note about ‘From Zero’, which translates to ‘from zero’.
In addition, the first single, ‘The Emptiness Machine’, was released today, the video for which will be released tomorrow, and in which Armstrong’s heartbreaking voice evokes that of the late Bennington and creates a new sound that draws on the nu-metal legacy of the authors of ‘Hybrid Theory’ or ‘Meteora’.
The ‘From Zero World Tour’ begins in Los Angeles (California) on September 11 and passes through New York on the 16th, before jumping to Europe (Hamburg, on the 22nd, and London, on the 24th), South Korea (Seoul, on the 28th) and Colombia (Bogotá, on November 11).
Among other surprises, Linkin Park have published a concert from the new album recorded with an audience in an unspecified location in which the harmony of the new formation can be appreciated and in which they reinterpret legendary songs such as ‘Somewhere I belong’, ‘Crawling’, ‘Faint’ or ‘Papercut’.
Shinoda, on stage with his guitar slung over his shoulder, introduces the members by name and role, adding, “And in the role of Chester Bennington, there’s all of you.”
This Friday, the band will sit down with host Zane Lowe for an interview on Apple Music, “a candid and in-depth conversation about Linkin Park’s incredible legacy, their seven-year journey to new music and their excitement for the future,” Live Nation’s statement said.
