Since I began listing not only my vinyl but my entire music collection on Lines in Wax, I knew the day would come where I would have to touch upon the questionable purchases I made when I was younger. Today that day has finally come. Scorn at nu-metal all you like, but I actually like this CD. I actually prefer it to say, I dunno, Deathcrush by Mayhem. Well, maybe not prefer. Wrong choices of words. But I find it more listenable.
I bought this when I was 11 or 12 years old. The live version of "Outside" was the most played video on Kerrang! TV and that's probably what made me buy Break The Cycle. Staind were quite lovey-dovey so I remember being pretty suprised at how heavy some of the songs were. What Staind have become or what they did with their career is not what I am discussing here, only what I am experienced with here on this album. A good half of this stadium-filling nu-metal record actually contains pretty good songwriting. Despite the chart success, both "Outside" and "It's Been A While" are extremely well crafted and catchy songs. Opener "Open Your Eyes" is a fairly grim affair, and "Pressure" is geniously heavy for something of this nature.
Other songs on the record don't really amount to much, but even the terribly angsty "For You" has one hell of a riff, and the uninspiring "Fade" is actually pretty thoughtfull under the boring fuzz. Staind as a group used baritone guitars and five-string basses before it was particularly well-known in mainstream metal, and this definitely contributed to the heavier-than-usual sound here. Sometimes it feels like the music is too heavy for the words. I read that somewhere before in an article about the band Kroh, but I definitely think it applies here better.
Hate me for writing about this if you will, but I don't particularly care. There's a lot worse to come! Ha Ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment