Linkin Park: Meteora

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

There are ways to follow up delivering one of the world's biggest-selling albums of years past. One is to rip up the blueprint and start again. The other is to slavishly copy the first one and add a few more bells and whistles and wait for the cash registers to come in on the chorus. Californian nu-metal popsters have chosen option B.

And while Meteora can deliver a parent-annoying screaming racket with industrial beats and hip-hop bits across its 13 tracks, it's the same pre-processed, earnest (but swearing free) complaint-rock with much the same scream'n'rap hooks that sold all those copies the first time round.

Almost admirable for how brutally generic it sounds, Meteora is an album which at least should teach the vast Linkin Park fan base the meaning of deja vu.

Label: Warner Bros