Staind: Break The Cycle : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Since grunge blew away hair metal's sleazy glamour with emotional realism, there's been no turning back for misery rock. It's a genre that has loved company: Bands such as Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins and Korn were loud-rock renegades, but their imitators have proved that it takes more than a good scream and a few hate-your-parents lyrics to stand out in an overcrowded field of despair. At first glance, Staind may look like a Korn tribute band. But within the first few seconds of Break the Cycle, they let loose enough Mothra-heavy riffs to prove they can rock circles around peers such as Limp Bizkit and fellow Bostonians Godsmack. Then Aaron Lewis takes the mike, and although his pained tunefulness and heart-on-sleeve lyrics don't exactly rewrite misery rock's rules, they do assert Staind as the grim genre's most song-oriented, downright sensitive band in years. As already demonstrated by "Outside," the acoustic hit from the Family Values Tour 1999 album, Staind don't need to split eardrums to open hearts. "I just needed someone to talk to," Lewis sings in "Fade," one of several woe-is-me tracks that would be wimpy if his buddies didn't kick butt. His sincerity is disarming -- and sometimes a little artless, as if he lifted rants directly from his diary. But the candid confessions and folksy melodiousness of "It's Been Awhile" nearly attain the poetic grace of a misery-rock milestone, Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun." With hits like this, Staind may become the first new-metal band to break the generational barrier as they cross over to pop radio. What will they whine about then?