After a week of teases, Linkin Park has shared a new song called “Friendly Fire.”
The track was originally recorded during the sessions for LP’s last album, 2017’s One More Light, and features lead vocals by the late Chester Bennington. Bennington passed away in July 2017, just two months after One More Light was released.
You can listen to “Friendly Fire” via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video, which features archival live and in-studio footage, streaming on YouTube.
“Friendly Fire” will also be included on a newly announced Linkin Park best-of compilation, dubbed Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023). The 20-track set, due out April 12, spans LP’s career from their 2000 debut album, Hybrid Theory, to One More Light. It also includes the unearthed single “Lost,” which was released in 2023 alongside the 20th anniversary Meteora reissue.
“In the making of each Linkin Park album, I want to love and believe in each individual song completely,” says LP’s Mike Shinoda. “I hope that if any one track is heard on its own in the world, it is something I can feel proud of, and something that takes root inside the listener and becomes part of the energy that connects us.”
“Curating the tracks for Papercuts was a joy,” he continues. “Each song in this collection is both a singular moment on our timeline and an evolving story that is as much ours as it is yours. From our first release ‘One Step Closer’ to the brand-new ‘Friendly Fire,’ this tracklist spans all our chapters so far. Thank you for being a part of our journey. We hope you enjoy Papercuts.”
In other Linkin Park news, their song “In the End” has been certified Diamond by the RIAA.
Here’s the Papercuts track list:
“Crawling”
“Faint”
“Numb/Encore”
“Papercut”
“Breaking the Habit”
“In the End”
“Bleed It Out”
“Somewhere I Belong”
“Waiting for the End”
“Castle of Glass”
“One More Light”
“Burn It Down”
“What I’ve Done”
“QWERTY”
“One Step Closer”
“New Divide”
“Leave Out All the Rest”
“Lost”
“Numb”
“Friendly Fire”