Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park album) come". "Herald Sun" writer Karen Tye gave it 3½ out of 4 stars and praised the band's new sound, asking, "Who knew being a plain old rock band could suit Linkin Park so well?". Despite commending the band for their ambition, "The Guardian"s Caroline Sullivan gave the album 3 out of 5 stars and perceived "their decision to stay roughly within the shrieky boundaries of their genre" as a weakness, while writing that "the sound still pivots on the interplay of walloping guitar chords and self-flagellating lyrics". Among those with a more negative view of the album was Stephen Thomas
Minutes to Midnight (song) some 12 minutes in the preceding decade. This was the closest to midnight the clock had reached since the overt testing of H-Bombs by the US and Soviet Union in 1953. This setting was surpassed only recently, after the inauguration of American president Donald Trump in January 2017, when the clock was set at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. The lyrics warn of escalation in the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union (""ICBMs, SS-20s / they lie so dormant, they got so many""), and allude to both H.G. Wells and heralded Australian racehorse Phar Lap. Minutes to