Five albums along, although most folks (including myself) have only heard four of them, Staind finds themselves in a position where they seemed to have identified their "unique style", and that style has become something of a prison for them.  Really, Chapter V sounds remarkably similar to their third album, Break The Cycle.  In fact, all the songs on this 2005 album could have been written back in 2001, they sound so similar. 

Now, in grading this effort, I find myself looking at three standards of criteria:

• Staind is supposed to be a metal band, but anyone who has listened to metal over the course of the last 10 years knows that there are different grades of metal.  Staind started with a significant hardcore influence that was at least somewhat in evidence on their second album, Dysfunction (really, just a few songs on that album).  But one could see an obvious effort at moderating that sound, especially between Dysfunction and Break the Cycle.  The metal is still there, but the hardcore element, for the most part, is gone.  There are some pretty good metal songs on this album, though: "Paper Jesus", "King of All Excuses" and "Falling."  It should also be noted that it is good to have at least someone in metal who isn't all about agression and screaming, and who can insert some melody into their songs, and Staind certainly qualifies on that standard.  Singer Aaron Lewis sings throughout the album, and the cathartic screams that we once heard on occasion are gone.
• Staind has always had a taste for balladry, and this album is dominated by ballads and slower songs.  Of course, their brand of balladry tends to be the singer dissecting his various emotional issues, laying his soul bare as a form of catharsis.  They hit the gold mine on Break the Cycle with "Outside" and "It's Been Awhile", but it seems like they are using those songs as a template to mold other songs.  That pattern gets old after a while, especially when the melodies aren't quite as compelling as those two songs were.  That said, the songs aren't bad, just not as memorable.  They continue to use the nice vocal harmonies that they debuted on Break The Cycle, one of this band's strengths.

So, we've established that there is some metal, and there are some ballads, and that they emote a lot (no, I should restate that: they emote a lot).  But how good is the album?  Well, like I said earlier, they are limited by their reliance on the emoting template.  Many of the "ballads" start to blend and sound like each other, and like songs from their earlier albums.  I think it is significant to note that the strongest songs, IMO, are actually the less-ballad/more-metal songs.  But that seems beside the point, as pretty much the entire album still feels like it had been recorded in 2001, not 2005, with little artistic progression inbetween.  The same song repeated over and over again gets tiring after a bit.

My grade? 6 (out of 10)