Review Summary: Staind at its peak in every sense: darkness, heaviness, hatred and QUALITY.
It may sound weird, but Staind's '96 debut album, Tormented, shows a big similarity between post-grunge bands Staind and Creed, more specifically between both bands' musical career. But... WHY??
Because just like
Creed's debut album My Own PrisonStaind's "Tormented" is, at the same time, their least known, successful, commercial (even if Creed's debut was very successful and actually was mainstream, it was the least if compared to their previous releases), and produced album. BUT, at the same time, it's their darkest, most sincere, least formulaic (mistake in which both bands fell notoriously in time), least cliché (another further mistake of both bands), least whiny, least "samey sounding"... In conclusion, their BEST album was their debut, just like Creed's case.
Now, let's stop comparing (at least comparing with Creed, cause I’ll keep comparing, mostly with theirselves).
Stylistically, this is an almost unrecognizable Staind sound to those who know or like the band by their hit albums Break the Cycle14 Shades of Greyetc.
When I heard this album’s “lead single” Come Again for the first time, and then the album as a whole, thoughts like “Oh, this is great if compared to the Staind of today”, “So this is the original Staind!” and “Why did they change that much? They were much better!”, came to my head. Because yes, lamentably that’s the reality. Staind were a promising nu-metal/grindcore band, which sold out (with help of the rock prostitute Fred Durst… he should be in life imprisonment for killing rock music and being so stupid!), and turned itself into the cliché, whiny,
Alice in Chains poser, and mawkish Staind we know today, while Aaron Lewis knew what a power ballad was, and gained weight and tattooes.
It’s more than sure that this album deals with depression, hate, and suicide (just take a look to the artwork), which resembles me a bit of
Nine Inch Nails's The Downward Spiral , even if Mr. Reznor’s lyrics are much more sophisticated and deep than Lewis’s; but the lyrics, even if they could be sharper, they are pretty decent and appropriate to the dark aura of the album’s music as a whole. And also, the detail of the gun being loaded and cocked in the start and being shot at the end of the album, was a pretty cool and creative move made by the band.
But the band, the album and this review aren’t just about Aaron Lewis and his ideas. We have to talk about the best and most important part of the album: the musicianship, from the vocals to the drums. And sorry if I compare too much this album with the Staind of today and other stuff, but it’s unevitable. In general, related to the actual Staind, the vocals are much more rough, the basslines are much more notorious and imponent, the guitar is much more distorted and heavy, and the drums are much more fierce. Summarizing, the musicianship is 100% brutality.
Probably, Aaron Lewis got aphonic for a long time before finishing this album, and had released with his voice an anger, hatred and pain that could also be released with a pair of boxing gloves and a sparring, reaching the point of cramps on his arms before endless punchs, because in Tormented we can see an Aaron Lewis alternating moments of total calm and melancholy soft singing with howls and screams filled with torment. Just like the album title: his vocals are tormented. All that, of course, in a positive way, because, in spite of some exaggerated high-pitch moments, his vocals are very good and his tones fit very well with the rest of the musicianship, which I have very little to complain about. Even if the guitar distortion is the same in the whole album and some people appeal with this argument that all songs sound the same, they are very wrong in the most part (sometimes the strumming gets way too similar), because the dynamics here are much more variated: some intros are much larger (ex. Come Again, Question, Nameless), we have also “sliding” riffs (Mudshuvel, Question), some songs have GUITAR SOLOS!!!! (that was a pleasant surprise for me), that even if aren’t anything spectacular, they are pretty exciting (it’s pretty interesting to listen a Staind song with a solo heheh) (Break, Painful, No One’s Kind), some riffs are less prominent than the bass (4 Walls), etc. And talking about bass guitar, Johnny April does an splendid work over here. I have very little to say about him, because his work can be resumed in few words: simple, prolific, imponent. His basslines are very present through the entire album (in a total opposite to
Metallica’s …And Justice for All hehe), with some of the most memorable basslines I’ve ever heard, like Mudshovel, No One’s Kind and Come Again. In those songs, he shows REAL GOOD bass guitar on rock music, and deserves an standing ovation.
Now the last part, the drums, played by Jon Wysocki. In this album, he has a very fit and arranged cymbal crashing in the songs, and, if compared to later releases, a faster, and more enthusiastic drumming, which reaches its quality climax in Question?. Maybe Wysocki’s work is the least “criticizable” (I don’t even know if this word exists hehe), but like BlindGuy1012 raised very correctly, there’s nothing to praise either
Now, to conclude, in my opinion, this album is EXCELLENT, by far their best. But being more objective, at the same time it isn’t anything amazing, it can be a very good listen, mostly before knowing the well-known Staind of the typical Billboard 200 no. 1 spot albums. I’m sure that that makes the album even more interesting, and I’m sure that everybody who hears this album, has heard previously AT LEAST their hit single “It’s Been A While”, so no worries.
