The end of May brings (along with Linkin Park’s Meteora) the most anticipated release of the year, Staind’s 14 Shades of Grey. The project includes another big name in rock, Josh Abraham, who’s recently traded in his microphone for more production opportunities.

The buzz around this album is a little different from the last album. Coming off Dysfunction, Staind where riding a buzz train, failed by there unique mix of heavy to hard rock rhythms matched with vocals that came out crystal clear, and could easily drift to one of the best screams in the business. Break the Cycle sent a shockwave through the industry and fan pools. While fans had recently been exposed to the band’s first, and considerably harder, record Tormented, Break the Cycle smoothed out the hard, treble heavy riffs, and softened the hard vocals, to make a more modern to hard rock album. Critically acclaimed and platinum certified the album was an immediate success. However, this is the hard rock industry. When hard rock fans latch onto an up and coming band, pushing them to popularity, then develop this trusting bond that the band will continue to stay true to there original sound. When this bond is broken, these fans react with harsh criticism and the industries favorite word, SELL-OUT. But in Staind’s defense, I pose an example.

You’re hired to make drawings for a company. You must sell so many copies to retain your contract and be paid. After drawing one great picture, you will receive reasonable sales, and word of mouth will be your advertisement. When people who bought your first picture come back, will they keep buying the same picture over and over again, with only slight changes, or will they be more inclined to purchase something new and expansive, based upon the style of your first. Point being band’s must sell records to release more records and tour. To do this a band must expand upon their sound and touch new creative areas, whether that be harder of softer. And that’s leads to the brand new release from Staind, 14 Shades of Grey.

The album doesn’t explode from the speakers as Dysfunction did, While it also doesn’t contain the rhythm based, structured sound of Break the Cycle either. The album leaps out of the gates with Price to Play, a gritty, palm muted jam reminiscent of harder Staind work, before morphing into a chorus vocal and rhythm that drift toward the smoother side of Staind. Guitarist Mike Mushok slides some lead pieces in throughout the song, that subtly yet forcefully reinforce the songs driving rhythm.

How About You immediately mixes things up with an acoustic/electric modern rock track. This track keeps the focus on Lewis’ vocals, which hit some impressive highs, allowing him to showcase his vocal depth while Mushok switches acoustic to electric and lead to rhythm constantly throughout the song, even at times joining together. Tracks like this one will draw immediate criticism from the department of Sell-Out. The track shows more depth than any track on the previous record, and rivals some of the great arrangements on Dysfunction. But in the expansive sound of this track, they unfortunately lose the edge of there early sound, trading the edge in for a mature, increasingly skilled product.
So Far Away keeps the emo-rock style rolling with an acoustic/electric sing along. The track blast a little distortion on the chorus but mostly showcases the fact that Staind have collectively mastered the song writing process, and have now graduated to cranking out radio friendly tunes, an album at a time. The song also sees a drop in the depressing lyrics of previous albums, for a brighter aspect. Though there’s still plenty of emotion to go around.

Yesterday keeps the modern rock flow going, with a slight tempo bump. Cool guitar effects on the verse with middle of the road vocals from Lewis. The punch comes on the chorus with more high pitched vocals and another solid rhythm on guitar and drums.

Fray has a slower, mellow feel similar to Break the Silence. Built around a central picking arrangement and somber vocals, the track rolls like an outtake from the Break the Silence sessions. The track reverts to the emotional theme of the previous albums on vocals.

Zoe Jane is a slow acoustic based song that’s similar to “It’s Been Awhile” in arrangement and overall song feel and vibe. A very slow tempo track that will likely find itself being a single, simply for it’s showcase of ear-friendly string arrangements and classic Lewis vocals.

Fill Me Up picks the pace back up to where the album opened, with a crunchy riff that crashes into a majority drum/vocal verse, with some nice harmonization. Unfortunately the crunch riff is only used as a chorus to verse bridge.

The focus of the album thus far is definitely away from the band scope and slightly geared more toward Lewis. The arrangements are softened, and the showcase that Mushok and drummer Wysocki normally spew out are limited and watered down, although this doesn’t flaw the album. The album is simply built and arranged so that this is how the instrumentalist fit in, in more of a rhythm role.

Layne is a tribute to AIC front man Layne Staley. The song’s vocals are crafted in a way that they resemble the tonality and range of Staley, while the vocals reminisce and give a great tribute to Staley and his effect on Lewis life. The song is even musically written in a way the resembles a convergence of Staind’s sound with latter day AIC tracks.

Falling Down is another track that delves into the Dysfunstion bag of tricks a bit, based around a hard bass driven rhythm and lead guitar with very little rhythm chord strumming. Probably one of the least eventful and passionate songs of Staind’s career. The track offers very little musically or creatively.

Reality follows with a lengthy string arrangement behind Lewis slow meandering vocals. Though slow paced, the guitar noise helps build to a slow jam on the chorus. The string arrangement to slow jam seems to be the dominant theme of the album, letting the rhythm and Lewis vocals drive the album as opposed to complex arrangements.

Tonight attempts to resurrect some sense of tempo to a slow paced album. The pace fades a bit on the verse, but in it’s place is the complex picking arrangements (even some harmonics) we’ve come to expect from Mushok, and the jam is a bit truer sporting some decent pace on the chorus. Mysocki drumwork shows through a bit more on this track as well, which enhances the song sound tremendously.

Could It Be has an odd mix of hard crunchy, classic Staind rhythm riffs, with an oddly timed, almost pop cheese lead line. The song also executes the pace set by the last song, driven back to slow paced distorted guitar jam with Lewis pitching some high vocals.

Blown Away, clocking in at over 6 minutes, is a monster of a track by Staind standards, and this should immediately bring a smile to your Grey Shaded face. Time = arrangement, arrangement = quality, quality = substance. All very pretty words that should be associated with all Staind cuts. Although slow, as you should have noted will be throughout by now, the arrangements and edgier vocals are a breathe of fresh air to an album becoming a bit monotonous. The multi-guitar sound with Mysocki banging away on the skins is more in the direction old time Staind fans would like to see the music going. After all no one wants to see Aaron Lewis posters, he and his sound are very reliant upon this band.

Intro ironically close the album out with another lethargically pace track. The track starts with a heavy bass line and a rolling drumbeat. Before slowly including a rainy day walk in the park type picking arrangement with some soft and somber vocals from Lewis.

Although disappointment would be a stronger word than I would like to use, the album will be a disappointment to any first and second album fans as this album offer you nothing more than the opening cut and first single. The album past “Price to Pay” is lethargically paced, monotonous at times, and mostly showcases Lewis singing ability rather than the band that got the guys to this point.

As a fan driven by musical content as much as catchy, radio-friendly vocals, this album is a bit on the average side. The immense vat of unexploited talent that is the backing band of Staind, goes totally unused on this album. The fast paced, intricately arranged jams with mind boggling drum work and smashing guitar rhythms are a thing of the past. Staind has grown and matured to a distinctly mature sound. Bands change and Staind has done just that. Price to Pay may be an ode to past days rather than a fresh new single. Fans of “Break the Cycle” will be at home on this album, although it does contain considerably less crunch and rhythm driven rock than “Break the Cycle”. If you’re not going into this album looking for slow jam rock with arrangement verse leading to slow distorted guitar driven chorus fueled by Lewis vocals, you will be sorely disappointed.


Recommended: Yes