Linkin Park drops unreleased song with Chester Bennington vocals

Linkin Park dropped a never-heard-before song, featuring vocals from the late member Chester Bennington.

The song Friendly Fire was released on Friday, which is a part of their forthcoming album, Papercuts, which is the band’s career-spanning greatest hits album.

Bennington, who was the lead vocalist of the band, known for his intense distinct style of singing, died by suicide at age 41 on July 20, 2017.

Friendly Fire is a previously unreleased track from the band’s 2017 album, One More Light. At the time, the band had also filmed a corresponding video, featuring never-before-seen studio and live footage.

The video was directed and edited by long-time collaborator Mark Fiore, the song encapsulates the seven-year-old album’s style.

About the song, lead guitarist Brad Delson shared that Friendly Fire “was always one of our favorite songs from the One More Light sessions.”

He said that at the time they “set it aside for later” as “something wasn’t quite right” but they were “blown away” when they started looking at unreleased tracks for the upcoming album.

“I was blown away by the power of the song, the power of the storytelling, the power of the vocal, the sonic landscape and I actually thought that it was closer than maybe we had realised at the time.”

Linkin Park’s Papercuts is set to release on April 12, 2024.