Review: Dead By Sunrise – Out of Ashes
Out Of Ashes, at first glance, seems superfluous – a side project from the voice of Linkin Park in 2009? This particular voice became the sole focus of LP’s musical attack once the inherent repulsiveness of the rap-rock genre became apparent even to its most successful progenitors a few years ago. So Out Of Ashes works from a familiar musical template: simple, crunchy riffs; snappily consistent 4/4 beats; and, of course, that voice.
Chester Bennington has forged a very distinct identity in the world of modern radio rock. While most of Linkin Park’s nu-metal peers take their vocal influences from either the pig-squeak Cannibal Corpse school or that rumbly, mush-mouthed baritone bastardized from Eddie Vedder’s cracked and vulnerable orginal, Bennington, by contrast, seems to have studied Anthrax’s John-Bush-era records. His voice is strong and steady, essentially high but coated in gravel. His greatest gift, though, is his ability to carry a strong melody; that is what sets any given Linkin Park anthem aside from the rest of the slop it’s smuggled between on radio playlists.
Out Of Ashes is bracingly melodic from start-to-finish; it begins with the relatively bright one-two punch of “Fire” and “Crawl Back In,” Both tracks lyrically address Bennington’s by-now-infamous self esteem issues, but they do it in the context of major key stadium rock. It’s a refreshing switch from the uniformly downbeat output of his other band, and one that figures prominently in Out Of Ashes overall success – every time a lowly angst-nugget like “Let Down” clogs the record’s flow, a stomper like “Condemned” is right around the corner to blast the proceedings back into high gear.
Bennington doesn’t do anything new on Out Of Ashes. The closest he comes to subverting the establish Linkin Park formula is the Phil Collins beat and moderate synth squiggles of “Let Down” or lightweight power-ballad “Give Me Your Name” (complete with Slash-esque, edge-of-the-cliff guitar solo). Elsewhere it’s business as usual, which means that people who love Bennington from his day job will flock in droves to hear this pleasant variation. It may not be groundbreaking, but if you come here looking for fresh musical ideas, you kind of deserve the disappoint. Out Of Ashes is a machine-tooled musical thrill ride, and the thrill comes from the factory precision with which these ingredients are scientifically combined. The outcome of the experiment is never in question, but that’s why this stuff sells.
That’s also why it works.
Choice Jams:
“Crawl Back In”
“Inside Of Me”
“My Suffering”
“Condemned”
“Walking In Circles“
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Oswald Hobbes is an amateur music appreciationist from the wilds of the Midwest.
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[...] to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! A few weeks ago, we ran a rather glowing review of the new Dead By Sunrise CD “Out Of Ashes.” We praised numerous aspects of the disc but neglected to mention the backing band, Julien-K. [...]