This side project by Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington is a grim affair, with hackneyed post-grunge arrangements propping up pity-poor-me sentiments telegraphed in song titles like "My Suffering" and "Crawl Back In" ("Sometimes I cry/Sometimes I feel like I want to die," Bennington wails). Ashes is slightly redeemed by ballads like "In the Darkness," which bears a resemblance to the winning emo turn Linkin Park took on the Rick Rubin- produced Minutes to Midnight (2007). But the album is oddly inert, lacking both the brute force and big choruses that raised Linkin Park to rap-rock godhead status.