Chart busters

Staind power their way to the top with Break the Cycle

by Sean Richardson

Someone order a round of drinks for the guys in Staind. The Massachusetts band's sophomore disc, Break the Cycle (Flip/Elektra), debuted at #1 on the Billboard album charts with a whopping 716,000 copies sold, and has remained at the top for three weeks. It ousted the season's media-anointed hard-rock blockbuster, Tool's Lateralus (Volcano), from #1 after only a week and fell just short of passing the Dave Matthews Band's Everyday (RCA) for the biggest opening week of the year. But wait, there's more -- Staind also handily outperformed their friendly regional rivals, Godsmack, who debuted at #5 with Awake (Republic/Universal) last fall. They even made a respectable run at Limp Bizkit, who happen to be their A&R men and the only rock band ever to sell a million albums in a week. Not bad for a group who started off on the cover-band circuit and never even managed to crack Boston before getting signed.

Break the Cycle's lofty sales numbers must have shocked even the most astute industry observers, but Staind's success hardly came out of nowhere. Co-produced by Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, their '99 debut, Dysfunction (Flip/Elektra), sported three hits and kept them on the road for two years straight. The group's recent rock-radio domination began in earnest about six months ago with the live version of "Outside," an acoustic ballad by singer Aaron Lewis (accompanied by Durst) from The Family Values Tour 1999 (Flawless/Geffen) compilation. Like fellow rockers Creed, 3 Doors Down, and Incubus, Staind suddenly found their music crossing over to the pop world.

The band's current single, "It's Been Awhile," hit radio a couple of months ago and picked up right where "Outside" left off. Together, the two songs are as depressing as anything from alternative rock's wrist-slashing heyday -- "Inside you're ugly/Ugly like me," sings Lewis on "Outside," which takes both mood and melody from Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Opening with a prickly guitar line that sounds like a bleaker version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun," "It's Been Awhile" boasts even more gripping psychodrama than "Outside." "It's been awhile/Since I could hold my head up high," moans Lewis at the outset, then later hints at the prospect of redemption through romantic co-dependence. Needless to say, neither song is up for feel-good hit of the summer.

But both are simple, well-crafted tunes well served by the band's bare-bones neo-grunge attack. ("Outside" reappears on Break the Cycle in full-blown power-ballad form.) And the rest of the album rocks out more convincingly than Creed or 3 Doors Down -- metal radio will have plenty to latch onto here once the ballads run their course. Guitarist Mike Mushok continues to draw cannily from the melodic thud of the Deftones and Alice in Chains, invigorating sadsack rockers like "Fade" and "Safe Place" with an impressive cache of arena-ready riffs. Lewis is at his most upbeat (read: still pretty damn morose) on the latter, a tearful love letter to his sweetie from the road.

Lewis's rich bellow is Staind's calling card, but his cynical outlook gets overbearing over the course of the album. Worse, his lyrics tend toward the self-righteous on songs like "Open Your Eyes" and "For You," the latter of which bitterly indicts his parents for his rotten upbringing. The disc's low point is "Waste," which is said to have been inspired by an uncomfortable meeting between Lewis and the mother of a fan who committed suicide. "Fuck you for not having the strength in your heart to pull through," is the best tribute Lewis can muster up for the poor kid, and no amount of choice rocking on the band's part can wash away the bad taste it leaves.

The dude can definitely sing, though, and it makes sense that the youth of America see a lot of themselves in a sullen pothead from sleepy Western Mass. Lewis gets surprisingly animated on "Can't Believe," screaming his way through a stellar piece of fake hardcore straight out of the Deftones playbook. After that, the disc re-establishes its prevailing mellow vibe with the prettiest Staind ballad of all, "Epiphany." Lewis's epiphany, of course, is not of the joyous variety ("It's always raining in my head/Forget all the things I should have said"), but the quiet drum rolls and swooning string section behind him help make it the most poignant rock ballad since the Creed megahit "With Arms Wide Open." With any luck, Lewis's newly-minted rock royalty will finally stop all the raining in his head. But don't count on it.

Staind play Meadowbrook Farm in Gilford, New Hampshire, on Saturday July 14. Call (603) 293-4700.