Nobody wants to sound like Bryan Adams. Except, uhm, Bryan Adams. And perhaps a covers band from Centurion who play the local Spur on Thursday nights.

So why the hell would a self-respecting emo group — with the pointy fringes, tattoos, and guyliner to prove it — put a mushy AOR power ballad (complete with slide guitar) on their fierce first album? But while 'Give Me Your Name' stands out like a mullet at a My Chemical Romance show, it isn't enough to blow away 'Out Of Ashes'.

Brooding with moody indie songs embellished with synths, '80s guitar solos, and periodically screamed vocals about self-loathing, persecution, lost souls, pain burning down to the bone, voices in your head, and the darkness, Dead By Sunrise's debut is as appealing as hair gel to a Tokio Hotel fan.

With Linkin Park's Chester Bennington in full control from behind the mic, this is no half-arsed time killer (or money spinner) while his main band do whatever it is they do in the years between albums. Nor is it a collection of leftovers from his day job minus the rapping. For all their faceless, generic lyrics and Howard Benson's by-the-numbers production, these 12 tracks find the singer and his five new sidekicks pour their bleeding hearts into muscular melodies that refuse to be ignored.

For all its anguish, 'Walking In Circles' is darkly beautiful, the hold-your-phone-aloft-and-sway-along 'Too Late' hypnotises, and 'Let Down' is the biggest old-school lighter anthem this side of an Aerosmith album.

And beneath its punky Green Day guitar assault 'Crawl Into Me' is as addictive as crystal meth, the ferocious drumming and snarled vocals of 'My Suffering' only force it deeper under your skin, and even the viciously ragged 'Condemned' fails to trample its melody into the dust.

Pity that Bryan Adams survived though.