12 Bands Like Linkin Park, And What Copies Miss

What Everyone Copies, and What They Should Have

For most of the 2000s, sounding like Linkin Park meant one thing: a restrained verse, then a chorus where the singer tears their voice apart. Dozens of bands did that. Almost none of them sounded like Linkin Park.

The reason is that the vocal was the surface. Underneath it, Mike Shinoda was building rock songs on hip-hop and electronic architecture: programmed drums treated as the foundation rather than an effect, samples and synth layers holding the harmonic weight, and arrangements that resolve in about three minutes because that is how a hip-hop record is built, not how a metal record is. Chester Bennington's voice was extraordinary, but it was sitting on top of a structure nobody else in the genre was using.

So a band who copied the scream got the least transferable part. The bands that genuinely scratch the itch are the ones who understood the thing underneath, or who share a direct line to the people involved. This guide is sorted that way.

The Direct Connections

Grey Daze

Chester Bennington's band before Linkin Park, running from 1994 to 1997 out of Phoenix. Grungier and rawer, with the voice already fully formed at an age when most singers are still borrowing one. After his death in 2017 the surviving members rebuilt the old recordings around his remastered vocals, with his family's blessing, as Amends in 2020. It is the closest thing to hearing where that voice came from.

Start with: Amends (2020)

Dead Sara

Emily Armstrong's band, and the most useful recommendation on this list right now. Linkin Park returned in September 2024 after a seven-year silence with Armstrong as co-vocalist alongside Mike Shinoda, releasing From Zero that November. Dead Sara is where she spent the previous decade: harder, looser and more straightforwardly rock than Linkin Park, and the reason the band chose her is audible within one song.

Start with: Dead Sara (2012)

Dead by Sunrise

Chester's own side project, and the record where he pursued the electronic side of his instincts without the band around him. Uneven, and interesting precisely because of that.

Start with: Out of Ashes (2009)

The Ones Who Understood the Architecture

Enter Shikari

The most direct answer to the question this guide is actually asking. British, and building songs on electronic foundations with hardcore on top rather than the reverse, which is the Shinoda move executed by people who came from dance music instead of hip-hop. Restless to the point of being difficult, and worth it.

Start with: Common Dreads (2009)

Hollywood Undead

The closest thing to the rap-rock balance of Hybrid Theory that anyone has managed since, with multiple vocalists splitting the rapped and sung parts rather than one person doing both. Less serious than Linkin Park by some distance, which is either the appeal or the problem.

Start with: Swan Songs (2008)

Crossfaith

Japanese, and the most aggressive entry here. Full electronic breakdowns bolted to metalcore, which sounds like a gimmick and works because the electronics are load-bearing rather than decorative.

Start with: Apocalyze (2013)

Bring Me the Horizon

Began as deathcore and spent a decade turning into something with far more in common with Linkin Park than with their own early records: electronics carrying the melody, arrangements built for stadiums, choruses that resolve. If you want the modern version of what Linkin Park were doing, this is it.

Start with: Amo (2019)

The Ones Who Understood the Vocals

Breaking Benjamin

The most commonly given answer, and reasonable. Benjamin Burnley works the same restrained-verse, detonating-chorus structure with a darker guitar tone and no electronic element at all. What you get is the dynamic without the architecture.

Start with: Phobia (2006)

Three Days Grace

Ontario post-grunge built on the same clenched delivery and the same second-person lyrics. Heavier on guitar, lighter on everything else, and covered in more detail in their own guide.

Start with: Three Days Grace (2003)

Skillet

Symphonic layers, dual vocals and choruses engineered for maximum lift. Further from Linkin Park musically than most of this list, and closer in the specific job the songs are doing.

Start with: Awake (2009)

The Ones Who Understood the Feeling

A large part of why this band mattered had nothing to do with the arrangement. These two got that part.

Evanescence

Arrived at almost the same moment with the same combination of heaviness and vulnerability, and Amy Lee's voice does with control what Chester's did with force. The gothic side of the same audience, unpacked further in our goth history.

Start with: Fallen (2003)

My Chemical Romance

Not a metal band and barely a rock band by the end, but they served the identical function for the identical listeners: permission to feel something loudly. If Linkin Park mattered to you at fifteen, this will make sense immediately.

Start with: The Black Parade (2006)

A Word About This Site

Disclosure: this site belongs to the team behind Daemon Grey, a solo industrial goth metal artist from Brantford, Ontario.

He is not a Linkin Park soundalike and there is no version of this list where he belongs on it, so he is not on it. Elsewhere on this site he appears in guides where the connection is documented, because he shares producers or names the bands as influences. Here he does not, and padding the list would waste your time.

If you want what he actually does, machine rhythms under metal guitars with no rap element and no radio chorus, electronic body music is the right starting point and King of Sin is the song most people begin with.

All Twelve Compared

Frequently Asked Questions

What band sounds most like Linkin Park?

For the voice, Grey Daze, since it is Chester Bennington singing before Linkin Park existed. For the full sound, Enter Shikari and Bring Me the Horizon come closest, because both build rock songs on electronic foundations the way Mike Shinoda did.

Who is Linkin Park's new singer?

Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, revealed on 5 September 2024 as co-vocalist alongside Mike Shinoda, with Colin Brittain joining on drums. The album From Zero followed on 15 November 2024.

What was Chester Bennington's band before Linkin Park?

Grey Daze, a Phoenix band he sang in from 1994 to 1997. In 2020 the surviving members released Amends, rebuilding the original recordings around his remastered vocals with his family's blessing.

Why do most bands like Linkin Park not really sound like them?

Because imitators copied the vocal dynamic, which was the surface. The structural innovation was underneath: programmed drums and electronic layers carrying the song, arranged closer to hip-hop than to metal. The wider movement they were filed under, and the grunge lineage it grew out of, is traced in the nu metal guide.

Which Linkin Park album should I start with?

Hybrid Theory (2000) for the rap-rock version, Meteora (2003) for the refined one, and From Zero (2024) for the current band.

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