Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park album) Linkin Park started work on their third studio album in 2003, taking a break to tour in support of "Meteora" in 2004. In this time period, the band formed numerous side projects; Mike Shinoda formed his hip hop side project Fort Minor, while Chester Bennington formed Dead by Sunrise, causing the album to be shelved temporarily. The band returned to work on the record afterward, taking on a different musical direction than the 2003 sessions while working with producer Rick Rubin. The album's completion was delayed several times for unknown reasons. Eventually, "What I've Done" was chosen as the album's
Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park album) Erlewine of AllMusic, who described the album's sound as "passé" and summed the band's effort up as "opting to create a muddled, colorless murk", giving it 2 and a half out of 5 stars. Johan Wippsson from "Melodic" acknowledged the band's progression but felt that the album is "weak" and "too shattered". "NME" magazine's Dan Silver gave it a rating of 2/10, calling it the "sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity", and referring to the song "Hands Held High", a song about terrorist attacks and war, as "far and away the funniest thing you