Review Summary: Chester Bennigton forms a new band and releases a debut album that shows he’s actually capable of making some good rock music with an industrial touch. Its actually quite a surprise.
I remember when Linkin Park came back to music in 2007 and overhyped Minutes to Midnight majorly. The result of the album was the sound of LP trying to expand their musical direction and experiment more and resulted in them strangling themselves and presenting an album that didn’t succeed in most aspects. Not to mention the radio overplayed all of the singles and wore the album out. Vocalist Chester Bennigton has a great voice; there is no denying it….but with LP he was faltering. His lyrics were the same old cliché that we all heard when we were in our teens and blasted Hybrid Theory at maximum volume screaming the ‘shut up when I’m talking to you!’ breakdown on ‘One Step Closer’. But when he announced that he had a new side project in the works, called Dead by Sunrise, I was very interested. Not only for the sake of how much I enjoyed Chester’s vocals when I was a kid, but because maybe with this project he had a chance to redeem himself from the horrifying music LP had been creating as of late. And this album is quite a surprise.
Throughout the album, one thing you will notice is that this record doesn’t sound like a Linkin Park record. Its different. Some songs are remincesnt of that ‘old-school’ LP rock sound, but this time around Chester is working with a new set of musicians and the music they made together is well worth the listen. The opening track, “Fire”, proves this. Chester’s vocals soar over melodic guitar riffs, audible bass lines, decent drumming, and a great keyboard texture throughout. It all leads into a heartfelt chorus and a very cheery and uplifting vibe. It makes for a good album opener and shows what this band can do. “Crawl Back In” shows the heavier side of the band, and proves they can really rock out and make a great track to sing along to with a punk feel. The lyrics sound a bit more like they were from an LP B-side, but it doesn’t completely ruin the song itself. There’s also a cool solo in it as well, which is a plus. These 2 are among the first songs the band released to the public, and while they are great and catchy singles, they still don’t show everything this band is capable of.
Elements of electronica and industrial music are instantly present in some tracks here. “Let Down” is driven by ambient keyboards that blend well with Chester’s vocals and features a good mix of distorted and clean guitars. Fans disappointed with the lack of heavy songs on the last LP album will be more satisfied here - “My Suffering” and “Condemned” are easily the heaviest tracks on the album, the former being a fast paced catchy rock song with good drumming and screams mixed with clean vocals and the latter being the most intense song on the album with Chester screaming better than he ever has since the early days of Linkin Park with a great solo to top it off. The band show their softer side on tracks like “Too Late and the ambient “Give Me Your Name”, which is driven by acoustic guitars and has a great performance by the band as a whole. “In The Darkness” works a great album closer, invoking all aspects of the bands sound with Chester’s voice leading it all to an end of electronic sounds fading out.
The lyrics on the record could be seen as the major weak point. Chester has had a bad reputation to some as writing cliché and cheesy lyrics dripping with teenage angst and never breaking out of that same shell. On this record, he somewhat improves. Some songs are ‘the same old Chester’ and have those types of lyrics (like “Crawl Back In” and “My Suffering”), but on some songs here he’s really attempting to break through that trend and with this being his project and his vision, he is able to move about more freely than he can with Linkin Park.
Out of Ashes is a promising debut album from an all around good band. The songs blend well as an album and feature a lot of good experimentation. Chester Bennington must have realized that Minutes to Midnight was missing something or had a better idea in mind, because this music sounds a lot better than anything Linkin Park has put out lately. Maybe if LP continues in the same vein as they are now, Chester should focus more on this project. Check this out if you are a fan of anything Linkin Park has done in the past or if you enjoy Chester’s vocals. It’s surprisingly exceptional.
