Staind-14 Shades of Grey (DVD-Audio) (2003) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Song Lyrics Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Homegrown: Video History Of Staind Gallery-Photo Discography Credits Easter Egg-Bonus Track - Let It Out Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	63:38 (Case: 107)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Josh Abraham
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Aaron Lewis Johnny April Jon Wysocki Mike Mushok
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	Staind

    14 Shades Of Grey is the fourth album from contemporary/modern rock group Staind, and showcases the band's continuing evolution from the previous, highly successful, album entitled Break The Cycle.

    The band's music has been variously described as hard rock, nu-metal, rap-rock, dark metal and the band has been compared to various contemporaries such as Korn and Limp Bizkit. Indeed, the New England founded band got their break by featuring as the opening act for a number of Limp Bizkit concerts in the north-eastern USA.

    Staind consists of:

• Aaron Lewis (lead vocals)
• Mike Mushok (guitar)
• Johnny April (bass)
• Jon Wysocki (drums)

    The songs on this album share a common theme of angst, alienation, rejection, confusion, cynicism and despair, emotions no doubt familiar to many young people as they go through puberty. Surprisingly, though, there are also some elements of tenderness and affection, and the band has toned down a lot of the anger and aggressiveness evident in their earlier albums.

    Price to Play is the first single released from the album and So Far Away is the second single. The band will probably kill me for this, but I seem to detect a hint of Oasis and even U2 in some of their songs. Zoe Jane is a ballad. The final song is surprisingly called Intro.

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. Each song is accompanied by lyrics and a photo gallery.

    This is a single sided dual layered disc. All the DVD-Video content is contained on Layer 1, so I was unable to determine where the layer transition is.

Audio

    The DVD-Audio content consists of the following groups:

• Group 1, Audio Track 1: English MLP 96/24 5.1
• Group 1, Audio Track 2: English MLP 96/24 2.0
• Group 2: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) (the audio track for the behind the scenes featurette)
• Group 3: English MLP 96/24 2.0 (bonus track Let It Out)
• Group 4: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)

    I was not able to find the "Linear PCM 2.0 48/16" programme advertised on the back cover.

    The DVD-Video section of the disc has two audio tracks:

• Title 1: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
• Title 3: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)

    The mix is very dense, and the high resolution MLP tracks both do a very good job of separating the detail out from what I suspect will be a "wall of sound" on the CD. I can hear subtle details in the guitar work as well as drums on each of the tracks despite the high level of the sound.

    The MLP 5.1 audio track has a fairly conservative mix whereby the rear channels are used to extend the soundstage to a full 250 degrees (if your speakers follow the ITU recommended layout). Vocals are primarily mixed to the front left and right channels, as well as to the rear channels but not to the centre channel.

    Low frequencies are mixed to all channels, as well as supported by the LFE channel. I was surprised to discover the subwoofer was only lightly used, and most of the low frequencies were coming from the main channels.

    The MLP 2.0 track sounds quite similar to the MLP 5.1 track.

    The lyrics weren't particularly easy to understand, so it's just as well song lyrics are included on-screen as well as in the booklet.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 track loses quite a lot of the subtle detail in the cymbals and the guitar work, as I suspected it would. It is encoded with dialog normalization set to +4dB, so sounds really really loud (I had to turn the master volume control on my amplifier to -28!)

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras include a fairly lengthy featurette, a photo gallery, album credits and a bonus track (available as an Easter egg).

Menu

    The main menu is animated and includes background audio.

Song Lyrics

    These are a number of text stills, available as a menu selection on the DVD-Video main menu, or as pages in the DVD-Audio section whilst the album is playing.

Featurette-Behind The Scenes- Homegrown: Video History Of Staind (41:46)

    This is presented in 1.78:1 letterboxed and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s). It is available as Title 2 on the DVD-Video section of the disc and Group 2 on the DVD-Audio section of the disc.

    This is a montage of video footage shot (presumably by one of the band members) over 1996-2002. It features various shots of the band backstage, recovering from a New Year, bowling, having a barbeque, recording at the studio, on the road, at various concerts, in an airplane, opening for Limp Bizkit and Korn, and touring in Europe.

Gallery-Photo

    This contains a mixture of 14 black and white and colour stills of the band at various aspect ratios. It can be accessed as a menu selection on both DVD-Video and DVD-Audio main menus, or as pages in the DVD-Audio section whilst the album is playing.

Discography

    This contains album covers and track listings for the following albums:

• MTV Unplugged
• Break The Cycle
• Dysfunction
• Tormented

Credits

    This is a set of 12 stills containing album credits and dedications.

Easter Egg - Bonus Track (4:55)

    This is accessed by highlighted the word "Shades" in the album title "14 Shades Of Grey" on the top menu. It contains a bonus song entitled Let It Out. The audio track is Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) on the DVD-Video section of the disc (Title 4) and Group 3 (MLP 2.0 96/24) on the DVD-Audio section of the disc.

Booklet

    This is a sixteen page colour booklet consisting of a number of photos of the band, album credits, dedications and song lyrics.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    14 Shades of Grey is the fourth album from hard rock band Staind.

    Both MLP 5.1 and 2.0 tracks are good at revealing subtle details underneath the loud and dense mix. The Dolby Digital audio tracks do not capture these details as well.

    Extras include a fairly long featurette and a bonus (hidden) track entitled Let It Out.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall