Chapter V
Platinum sales. Palatial homes.Fred Durst'scell-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 heroesAlice In ChainsandPantera. With the exception of the tantalizingly melodic "Devil" and tender love song "Everything Changes," the acoustic guitars have largely been set aside onChapter 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