The Illusion Of Progress [PA] * by Staind (CD, Aug-2008, Flip Records)

After 7+ cd's, Staind had a certain sound to their music. The previous cd, Chapter V, maintained this sound but also felt like a quantum leap out of their success shadow of pre-2001 albums. You can tell Chapter V branched out of their comfort zone, but the instrumentals, musical riffs, and song writing were in the same vein.

With Illusion of Progress, you can tell immediately that "This is it" is a very different sound for Staind. But I admit that I still like that song very much and play it often. No one else could pull the song off except Staind, but it still doesn't satisfy me the same way "For you" does. The next song "The way I am" is also a new-generation sound of Staind, but once you get to the chorus of the song, you have to admit this is a great song and could easily fit in well on a stud album like Break the Cylcle. It is my favorite song on the cd, and it is so much better then the other songs that I truly with it WAS on the BtC album instead of this one.

After that is "Believe" which is a much milder song, in the same family as "Right Here".. but it takes a back seat to that hit. Believe is just an easy to listen to song.. it will never be in any Staind fan's top 10 list... but I doubt any true fan has anything bad to say about this song. But instead of being a "good" song that typically seperates 2 hard songs.. this song pretty much marks the sharp downturn of the album into the gutter...

Every song after this song is awful and sounds like Staind stopped caring about what their fans want out of them. This cd is easily the worst Staind cd ever released... and it's not even that close of a comparison... the rest of the Staind albums would receive a grade of 85% "B" or better.... with the "Singles" album obviously getting a perfect 100... Break the Cycle a 95, Dysfunctional a 94, 14 shades of gray 90, and Chapter V gets an 85 (but I would cut it some slack because it successfully branched out of their comfort zone and STILL delivered with songs like Right Here, Please, and traks 10, 11, 12.

I would give Illusion of progress a 10% "F"... some songs are good (mentioned above) and the last track is "barely" acceptable... but it completely fails to deliver the "spark" that Staind music is supposed to ignite inside of you. Traditionally you hardly ever skip tracks in a Staind album... you always let it play from beginning-to-end.... and on occasion you will "repeat" a track that really strikes you.

This new album is flat out bad. Don't pay more than $2 to try it... trust me.