10 Metal Bands That Changed Their Sound

Every self respecting nu metal band knew that their time in the sun seemed to be up by the time the mid '00s rolled around. As much as there were still angsty white boys looking to get their aggression out, it was time to move as far away from the JNCO jeans era of rock as you possibly could, and the more sensible bands started to take their sound in a lot more interesting directions in the next few years. Though Linkin Park may have owned the genre at one point, Minutes to Midnight was the first look at the more alt rock side of their sound.

While the more pop friendly appeal of songs like Numb had never been that far away from alt rock, this record was the first time where the band decided to leave the angsty part of their sound in the past. For everyone who came to the band for the heavy riffs, there aren't too many to be found on here, trading in the heavy guitars for some of the more subdued cuts in their catalog like Shadow of the Day and What I've Done.

They hadn't forgotten their metal roots though, with No More Sorrow and Given Up featuring some of the band's best guitar riffs and The Little Things Give You Away being a pretty harsh jab at the way the Bush administration was handling the fallout of Hurricane Katrina at the time. This might be far from the heights that we know Linkin Park are capable of, but in between the ballad heavy side of the record is still that angry rock band that we fell in love with back on Hybrid Theory.