Line-up changes. Management changes. A tour van accident.

In the past five years, Cleveland-based rock band Sindust has survived all of those things to release its fourth studio album, Back from the Back.

“Pretty much what we all decided was it’s about time we got back from . a pretty dark time,” said Chris Donley, singer and guitarist for Sindust. “It’s a new record and things are going good again.”

The album’s name, Back from the Back, is a reflection on the band being able to make it back from what Donley considered the darkest corner of its history.

The album is Sindust’s first since 2001’s Sucking the Inspiration. The gap between albums has many reasons.

During the five-year period between the albums, Sindust went through four bass players and two guitar players. Donley and the band’s drummer, Tom Phillips, are the only two remaining original band members.

The other obstacle Sindust faced over that time period was a tour-van accident that destroyed all of its equipment and merchandise, which put the band down for almost a year. The band has spent the time since then trying to make up for its losses, finally being able to make the new album.

“The record is already selling great in the five days that it has been out,” Donley said. “You know … we’ve gone through (a lot), and I can’t believe it. It’s a good feeling that everybody hasn’t forgotten about us for stalling that long.”

All the things that happened weren’t negative; Sindust also found its style and Donley’s songwriting voice in that five-year time span.

“The old albums were all over the place,” Donley said. “There would be a heavy song and a soft song and … an in-between or a heavy. (The songs on Back from the Back) are all just pretty much straight-up, good, hooky hard rock. There’s not like anything … in-between or out in left field – it’s all a pretty cohesive album.”

The members of Sindust are all best friends and the band is finding itself at a higher level in its live performances and its songwriting than it was five years ago. However, the members of the band don’t want to be rock stars – they just want to make music for a living.

“I was hoping that we would be a lot farther,” Donley said, “but things happen for a reason. I think they happen for a reason, because the shit that we’ve gone through in the last five years has made us stronger, made us wiser.”

Contact ALL correspondent Gabe Gott [email protected].