Minutes to Midnight is the third studio album by American rock band Linkin Park, released on May 14, 2007, through Warner Bros. Records.

Minutes to Midnight is the band's follow-up album to Meteora (2003), and features a shift in the group's musical direction.

Linkin Park started working on their third studio album in 2003, taking a break to tour in support of Meteora in 2004.

In "Given Up", he jingles the keys that are heard while several clap sounds are overlaid in the intro of the song (as mentioned in the lyric book: Brad added the sounds on the intro song: multiple tracks of claps - and keys jingling.).

Shinoda and Delson teamed up with David Campbell to add string elements to six songs; "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Hands Held High", "The Little Things Give You Away", as well as the two b-sides "No Roads Left" and "Blackbirds" (which was instead later used in the iPhone game 8-Bit Rebellion!

All scratching elements by Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent because of the low mixing, except on the songs "What I've Done", "Wake", "The Little Things Give You Away", "Valentine's Day" and "In Pieces".

The church organ and military drumbeat on "Hands Held High" were originally to be used as the backdrop to melodic vocals, but Rubin recommended that the band try the opposite approach according to the album booklet.

Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has three solo lead songs on the record: "Hands Held High", "In Between" and the bonus track "No Roads Left".

He also raps on "Bleed It Out" while "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", "No More Sorrow" and "The Little Things Give You Away" features backing vocals from Shinoda at the end.

Minutes to Midnight is also Linkin Park's first album to feature guitar solos, particularly in the tracks "What I've Done," "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away".

Minutes to Midnight received generally mixed to positive reviews, based on an aggregate score of 56/100 from Metacritic.

[33] 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".

[22] Johan Wippsson from Melodic acknowledged the band's progression but felt that the album is "weak" and "too shattered".

[25] NME magazine's Dan Silver gave it a rating of 2/10, calling it the "sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity", and referring to the song "Hands Held High", a song about terrorist attacks and war, as "far and away the funniest thing you will hear all year".

[40] Guest musicians on "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Hands Held High", "The Little Things Give You Away", and "No Roads Left"