Staind Looks to Break the Cycle

April 19 -- The hard rock group Staind's sophomore album, Break the Cycle, is due out May 8, and Elektra Records, the band's label, certainly hopes the record doesn't live up to its title, given the platinum-plus showing of Staind's 1999 debut, Dysfunction.

But frontman Aaron Lewis says that the quartet, a discovery of Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, took full license to change its creative cycle on the new album, even though it worked again with producer Josh Abraham.

"It's like Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors," Lewis says. "There's one song on it where there's barely any singing at all; it's all heavy screaming, Pantera, Deftones-esque type of vocals. Then there's a song that's programmed drums and, like, a Portishead feel, with me playing the acoustic [guitar]."

And Lewis says the results have kept him and his bandmates from worrying too much about the pressure to follow up their debut. "I still felt the pressure, no doubt," he says, "but everything came out better than we could have imagined. We'll see what everyone else thinks when it comes out."

After the band opens some shows for Godsmack this spring, Lewis says Staind expects to perform at some spring and early summer radio festivals before taking off on a headlining tour.