Deadly boring

“Out of Ashes” is an album full of tracks that Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington couldn’t mold into his main band’s sound – meaning more straightforward rock that is far less interesting.

Sure, “Dead By Sunrise” is an OK addition to the “rock” genre that is currently devoid of many acts with that much talent, as efforts like “Fire” and “Crawl Back In” deliver heavier-than-expected guitar work and a rougher vocal from Bennington. However, nothing here is lasting.

Backed by what would-have-been-cool-four-years-ago atmospherics from Julien-K band members, Bennington growls on about “serious” issues in the most generic way possible in tracks like “End Of The World” (“When you can’t buy gas / And you can’t pay rent / And what you’ve got left is the government’s”) while the synthetic drum work on “Let Down” is mostly LOL-worthy.

“Dead By Sunrise” is far from bad, but there’s a reason Bennington couldn’t work many of these songs into the next Linkin Park album.