LINKIN PARK

One More Light Live

Warner Bros.

It’s heartbreaking to listen to Linkin Park’s new album. The reason is right there in the title: Live.

Five months after singer Chester Bennington hanged himself, the band has released One More Light Live, an album to cherish even if some fans disliked the pop direction the group had recently taken.

Here we get to hear again that unmistakable voice, both delicate and ferocious. Here we get to celebrate a unique talent, even as we say goodbye.

“Who cares if one more light goes out?/In the sky of a million stars,” Bennington sings in the fragile song One More Light. He answers: “Well, I do.” It’s hard not to get emotional hearing him reaching out to someone in trouble and knowing his light would go out soon.

Recorded earlier this summer during the band’s tour through South America and Europe, the album is naturally top-heavy with songs from the latest album, with seven of the 16 tracks pulled from One More Light.

So it’s not a greatest hits, but it still has essential Linkin Park tunes.

The editing is ragged, with songs cutting off abruptly, weird extraneous stuff lingering in the mix and intros sometimes attached to previous songs. But the instruments are clear and the crowd noise is balanced. As the band says in the liner notes, the album is a “glimpse into how magical these shows were for the six of us.”