“A Thousand Suns,” Linkin Park’s newest album, is taking the band in a new direction.

The album focuses on nuclear war and other general themes of warfare. Generally known for being an alternative rock band, Linkin Park takes their music to a different place by featuring a few hip-hop songs on their album.

“I like their music. It speaks to me and the lyrics actually have meaning, which is hard to find with music these days,” said senior Robert Hutchinson.

It was Linkin Park’s goal to make this new album more cutting edge and different. They found their inspiration for it from a quote in the Hindu Sanskrit text, the Bhagvad Gita which says: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty one.”

“We’ve been used to making a certain type of music and using sounds to accomplish that. So to break out of that and push ourselves to grow is definitely challenging,” said the band’s drummer Rob Bourdon in an interview with Billboard Magazine.

The band’s main goal in producing such an experimental and different album was to sound more organic and less technical.

“Their new album is way different than anything they’ve done before,” said Hutchinson, “it’s good, but, you know, out there.”

Fans responded well to the band’s new album, topping the Billboard 200 chart with 241,000 copies sold. However, as with any type of experimental music, the band received mixed responses from critics with some hating the album, while others raved.

“We wanted to make sure everything was top quality,” said the band’s singer Mike Shinoda.

The album also features a track with the highly political hip-hop group Public Enemy, and samples of famous speeches, such as Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream Speech”.

“I am glad they decided to do try something new, it turned out really well,” said Hutchinson.