10 Best Metal Ballads Of All Time

The era of nu metal tends to be pretty lacking in the ballads department. I mean, where would you find time for the more introspective material in between all of your other bangers about...existential depression and darkness? Yeah, aside from already having the subject matter down to a tee, Linkin Park notched up one of the few amazing slowburns of the nu metal movement on Breaking the Habit.

In fact, the best parts of this song is where it upends the normal ballad formula. Though the crux of the song is much more downtempo like most ballads, the actual construction of the electronics courtesy of Joe Hahn really help put us in the mindset of this protagonist, as he thinks long and hard about the decision of whether to commit suicide or not. Whereas Linkin Park had tried some of these pain-riddled songs on tracks like Crawling, this is the much more accomplished version of that idea, as Bennington reaches into the top of his range without ever sounding too shouty for his own good.

As the guitar hook plays like a loop inside your head, the orchestral like swells of the music really take over to create one of the greatest barrages of sound ever put to tape in the nu metal era. Say what you want to about Linkin Park being 'entry-level' metal...there's not many other nu metal acts who can make you feel it quite like this.