Metal of the new millennium: Staind’s tortured souls don’t cycle through old tricks

When you’re an up-and-coming metal band from Massachusetts, and your new CD suddenly sells over half a million copies in it’s first week of release, and spawns five hit singles, it’s probably a good reason to be genuinely surprised. Remember, this was 2001 – parents were definitely ‘not cool,’ and piles of nu-metal muck were dominating the media, so the formula worked well enough. Specifically, though, the thing about Staind on their ground-breaking chart-topper Break the Cycle is the way lead singer Aaron Lewis and his back-up buddies distance themselves from noise, and resort to pure, honest emotion. Their heavier previous album Dysfunction, produced by none other than poster boy Fred Durst, proved to be a crude but effective celebration of pummeling metal. But Break the Cycle mixes it up between crunching bridges, throaty screams and more calm tracks that allow all the heartfelt emotion to seep through.

They’ve never really made the same album twice (well, not quite), but it’s likely that this will remain the cornerstone of the outfit’s career. In an embarrassing incident, not only did Limp Bizkit themselves later turn to it for inspiration (see that ridiculous cover of The Who’s ‘Behind Blue Eyes’), but touches of the writing style and balladry are written all over other alt-metal bands. Check out Cold, Crossfade and Seether for starters. Some might reject the notion of Break the Cycle as being too emphasized on the pain instead of the emotion, but as long as you can accept that, yeah, some people do get a bad deal in life, then you should find the album’s rich, alt-metal sentiments easily likable.

There’s no better way to hit your churning, grinding disc off than with the dark, screechy opener, appropriate titled ‘Open Your Eyes.’ Frontman Lewis doesn’t join the screeching in the vocal department, rather, he grunts with a gravely sort of menace, particularly evident in the slowly spiralling chorus. And the lyrics? ‘An old man lies in an alleyway dead.’ Hmm. Oh well, that’s their therapy for you.

Massive, hook-heavy hit ‘It’s Been Awhile,’ the melody of which should be easily recognizable by now, is a towering list of bitter confessionals straight from the songbook, alerting to the listener Staind’s definite, once-and-for-all alt-metal progressiveness: note the jump between the simmering harmony of the verse and the harder drive of the pounding chorus. This is not nu-metal, ladies and gentlemen. Elsewhere, ‘Fade’ sacrifices most of that anger for more reflective mood music highly akin to Alice In Chains. ‘I just needed someone to talk to / You were just too busy with yourself,’ he cries over the dramatic, reverberating backing. While they can still be pretty spiteful, more gloomy atmospherics like this save the band from being incurable lumps. It’s like Lewis is talking to himself as much as us.

That said, fans of the group’s metal side shouldn’t be disappointed with the furious, full-pelt charge of ‘Can’t Believe,’ a track that tears it’s way through machine-gun drumming and consistent vomit screams, or ‘Suffer,’ which breeds a twisted vocal moan and a constant rhythmic throb. ‘Waste,’ a highlight of the album focusing on the suicide of a teenage fan, begins in mellow and sombre harmony, then later builds into angry shouts of ‘F*ck them / And f*ck her / And f*ck him / And f*ck you / For not having the strength in your heart to pull through,’ so the spine-tingling number is also worth a look into.

The album’s only bad track comes in ‘Safe Place,’ a mundane ballad about love and security that’s harder to follow than The Matrix’s storyline. And that is not a good thing.

Did I mention some of the ballads here, too? ‘Epiphany,’ a track recorded solely by Aaron Lewis, is the album at it’s most beauteous and pensive. ‘I know I’ll do the right thing / If the right thing is revealed / Cos it’s always raining in my head,’ he anguishes over the almost surreal backing, awash with drum machine, simple guitar chords and a trickling flow. ‘Outside,’ while not quite as lullaby-esque, is also just as simply effective. The band pick up an acoustic guitar and just strum away to an icy, sharp melody that originally made Staind famous. The studio version works marginally better – it manages to sound simpering yet angry at the same time, which you’ll know by the time the defined chorus kicks in: ‘I’m on the outside / I’m looking in / I can see through you / See your true colors.’ And ‘Take It’ is a nice way to finish, progressing backwards to the usual beefy guitar distortions, winding down to a near-whisper in closure.

Break the Cycle is sometimes a record that struggles from a slight stumble in consistency, as the power of ‘Can’t Believe,’ for example, is immediately neutralized by the soft ‘Epiphany’ afterwards. Up and down though through these thirteen tracks are real, intense feelings, the sad and the hopeful, and where is the Slipknot or Godsmack in that element? A spin of Break the Cycle is not ample opportunity to mosh, it’s more dressed for a solitary listen in silent contemplation. And for that degree of sheer meaning, Staind have found a place in my heart, above the routine metal mire.

Track List [x indicates standout track]
1. Open Your Eyes
2. Pressure
3. Fade
4. It’s Been Awhile [x]
5. Change
6. Can’t Believe [x]
7. Epiphany [x]
8. Suffer
9. Safe Place
10. For You
11. Outside [x]
12. Waste [x]
13. Take It

FURTHER READING
Dysfunction
14 Shades of Grey
Chapter V

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Thank you, and happy new year.