Chapter V

Chapter V marks the return of one of the biggest-selling rock groups in America today. Recorded at Allaire Studios in Shokan, NY and at the band's Springfield, MA rehearsal space, the CD was produced and mixed by David Bottrill (Peter Gabriel, Mudvayne, Godsmack). Staind is back in a huge way!

Platinum sales. Palatial homes. Fred Durst's cell-phone number. Is nothing enough to lift the heavy air of angst that hangs over Staind? "I've mastered feeling nothing/ I'm dead inside/ Why don't I care?" sings frontman and walking existential crisis Aaron Lewis by way of response on "Run Away," the opening track of the group's fifth album. And so the mood is set--again. The rest of the band offers its agreement through brooding torrents of noise and dense minor-key melodies, maintaining its allegiance to 1990s metal heroes Alice In Chains and Pantera. With the exception of the tantalizingly melodic "Devil" and tender love song "Everything Changes," the acoustic guitars have largely been set aside on Chapter V, leaving Staind to pummel away at its troubles and hoping that people still have time to listen to self-pitying grown men moan about their dysfunctional childhoods. "Falling is easy/ It's getting back up that becomes a problem," Lewis sings on "Falling." --Aidin Vaziri