Staind: "We used to be good"

Staind is coming out with a new CD. Excuse me for not rushing to Best Buy to reserve a copy.
I have a big problem with them ever since Break the Cycle. I've heard that album described as "dark." Perhaps it may be considered "dark" after listening to Brittney Spears or Outkast, or whatever it is that the kids are listening to these days, but in the grand spectrum of music it's much closer to the vicinity of "gray," not dark. Which makes their follow-up album, 14 Shades of Grey, appropriately titled. Although one can only imagine why they used the British spelling of the chromatic word.
It's not that Break was a bad album, it just wasn't any good. But Grey, on the other hand, is a big pile of crap. The album cover should be next to the dictionary definition of sell-out. The riffs are completely lackluster, solos are bland, and he does way too much vocal showboating--which gets really old after about one minute. All in all, it is entirely gray, as in neither warm nor hot, not offensive to anyone yet not pleasing to anyone.
What happened to the heyday of Dysfunction? There was a dark album. If you have access to illegally downloaded music (God forbid) then you should also look up Tormented, a release prior to their record deal which makes Grey appear to be white. The song "4 Walls," in particular, (which ends with the sounds of suicide) even manages to make your average Alice in Chains song sound like a song by Zebrahead.
I have no idea what happened to this once-dark, now-light band. Perhaps family softened them up, or perhaps Washington, Jackson, Franklin and friends had a hand in it. In any case, stay the hell away from Staind's new album if you have any dignity.