They've always sucked IMO. They do have 2-3 good songs I've heard, that's about it.

Written by SoUnDs LiKe PoP on 11.12.2015 at 22:10

They've always sucked IMO. They do have 2-3 good songs I've heard, that's about it.

That's because they have 2-3 types of song, nothing more. Some schemes they were repeating all the time.

Misused talent IMO. Draiman is an elite level vocalist and I'm not a big Disturbed fan, but I have seen them live and it's clear he is gifted in that respect. Donegan is a good guitarist too. Their style is the issue. It's tired and old. Their first album was fresh and really good IMO, Believe sucked hardcore. 10,000 Fists was good and so was Indestructible. I d listen to those albums from time to time and while they are made for the masses and I'm not a mainstream music fan, I do enjoy those albums. This album feels uninspired just like Asylum did. Weak tracks fill this album.

I agree with the posts above, all of them. They've made a few tunes that actually stick but the rest is just rehashed crap and indeed a big waste of talent as at least the vocalist seems to know what he's doing. They usually make good cover songs though (got a pretty good take on Land of Confusion etc.) so gotta check that one out.

"Basically, this is now a hard rock band" -you can't say you didn't see that coming

Oh no they're a hard rock band...

Sorry Steel but you failed me with this review.

I hate reviews that base the merit of an album on "heaviness" content. It's even worse for thrash bands (check out Metal Archives).

Oh and I'm not a Disturbed fan - don't listen to them at all. But I am a fan of albums that toned down the "main genre" content in favour of other "less heavy/extreme/more commercial" components (Load, Metallica The Ritual, Youthanasia, Domination, Serpent Saints, Diabolous In Musica, Swansong and even Supercollider and that delicious banjo driven country metal that is The Blackest Crow).

Genre changes if done well often result in some great music. (I did have an issue with stuff like In Flames or Children of Bodom music but then that's just a taste thing - I would never criticise them for lack of heaviness or being more commercial or whatever).


And finally Disturbed were always a commercial sounding and orientated band. But then we old schoolers never regarded stuff like Korn or Disturbed or Limp Bizkit or Spineshank as particularly metal in the first place, though some might have got more metal later on (and Metal Archives still doesn't regard Disturbed as metal). And Disturbed did trend jump (Nu-metal then a more conventional metal sound when true metal became popular).

Written by deadone on 16.12.2015 at 00:03

Oh no they're a hard rock band...

Sorry Steel but you failed me with this review.

I hate reviews that base the merit of an album on "heaviness" content. It's even worse for thrash bands (check out Metal Archives).

Oh and I'm not a Disturbed fan - don't listen to them at all. But I am a fan of albums that toned down the "main genre" content in favour of other "less heavy/extreme/more commercial" components (Load, Metallica The Ritual, Youthanasia, Domination, Serpent Saints, Diabolous In Musica, Swansong and even Supercollider and that delicious banjo driven country metal that is The Blackest Crow).

The basic state of the album's heaviness isn't really the problem. If Disturbed had come back and done a whole album that sounded like their cover of "The Sound of Silence," I would have loved it, even if it's the least-heavy thing they've ever done.

The fact that they have gotten less heavy, in this case, entails a loss of personality as well. Disturbed had this really cool, grimy, dark sound that was indeed very heavy, and now they've lost that sound as a result of changing tack, which is what I'm really lamenting. If you drop your style and change gears, that's fine - provided you have a place to go. If you just abandon your sound and then pick up a style that every Tom, Dick, and Harry has done to death, you wind up with a very inoffensive and boring album like this one.

I generally agree that it's silly to complain about an album purely because it isn't as heavy as the band used to be, but at the same time, it's not entirely unreasonable to say that the band also lost a major chunk of their distinctive sound, especially if they don't have the strength of songwriting or an interesting enough new direction to justify doing so. You could just take heaviness out of the picture altogether and look at it as complaining about a band not sounding the way they used to in general. If I don't like the new sound, I'm definitely going to wish that they had stuck to their old one, which is the case here.

Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 16.12.2015 at 00:30


The basic state of the album's heaviness isn't really the problem. If Disturbed had come back and done a whole album that sounded like their cover of "The Sound of Silence," I would have loved it, even if it's the least-heavy thing they've ever done.

The fact that they have gotten less heavy, in this case, entails a loss of personality as well.

Fair enough.

Quote:
Disturbed had this really cool, grimy, dark sound that was indeed very heavy,

Interesting that you say this, cause I never thought Disturbed were grimy or dark or heavy even by Nu-Metal standards (e.g. compare to Slipknot or Korn or Coal Chamber) let alone the wider metal world or even some of the alt rock that came out at that time. They were always bouncy and uplifting and polished sounding and somewhat rooted in generic song structures.

I'm just checking out Ten Thousand Fists based on the fact that it's your favourite album (judging by your score). And it sounds exactly like I described it - bouncy and uplifting and polished sounding and somewhat rooted in generic song structures.

Not a criticism - it's better than I anticipated - the vocalist is good and there's none of those irritating burps from the first album or two. There's some great Dimebag Darrel style riffage.

The 2-3 songs I heard from the new album were more conventional heavy metal and less American mainstream groove orientated. And they were better than most crap churned out by the Europeans or even once great American bands ala Iced Earth.

Quote:
If you drop your style and change gears, that's fine - provided you have a place to go. If you just abandon your sound and then pick up a style that every Tom, Dick, and Harry has done to death, you wind up with a very inoffensive and boring album like this one.

Again interesting you say this coz Disturbed sound IMO like the archetypal American late 1990s arena-metal band (again no criticism, just observation and I like stuff like Hellyeah).

Quote:
If I don't like the new sound, I'm definitely going to wish that they had stuck to their old one, which is the case here.

I think that's what it comes down to. By the sound it's one of your favourite bands doing something different and it doesn't gel.

E.g. I'd probably give most In Flames post-Colony a low rating below 5 because I don't like what they're doing. But my dislike of their new styles doesn't really mean it's shit music. It means it's just no my cup of tea and it might work really well for other people who like that kind of thing.

E.g. Metallica's Load did gel with me. They completely changed their vibe and arguably sold out to current flavours of the day (alternative rock/metal) but I think the result is great. Indeed Outlaw Torn is one of my favourite Metallica songs even though it's far removed from MOP or RTL And Mama Said is just superb.

Written by deadone on 16.12.2015 at 01:03

Lots o' stuff

I wouldn't describe Disturbed as one of my favorite bands, but I've been into them for a relatively long period of time, and I'd say that's a pretty good summary of my thoughts on the subject. One of the things I love about The SLoT, which IS my favorite band, is that they're constantly changing their style and making albums that sound very different from the previous ones. It just didn't really work out so well in this case.

Ten Thousand Fists is my favorite Disturbed release, but I think that they actually had the best sound on The Sickness, and then they slowly started stripping it away over the course of their career.

I consider myself a Disturbed fan, and I think that their first 3 albums are all very different stylistically from each other.

Indestructable on, it all sounds a bit generic, but this album really clicked for me...far more so than Indestructable and Asylum.

Believe is their best work IMO, closely followed by Ten Thousand Fists.

"Disturbed have become a very different kind of band, with none of the power, darkness, anger, or personality that once made them great."

What did you expect though? Draiman and the gang aren't getting any younger. 95% of the times, when musicians grow old, they also mellow out. What differs is that some bands mellow out blissfuly while others don't.

I'm a huge Disturbed fan, been listening to them a long time and own every album. I wont defend this album in particular but the fact that the reviewer seems to think the band suddenly became a alternative rock band with this release is shocking to me. This album isn't anything new. The band has been hard rock since Ten Thousand Fists. In fact, I remember hearing a quote from the band themselves during that era saying that was the direction they were going. If you thought they were something else before listening to this, I hate to tell you something, but you completely missed an entire decade of Distrubed music.

That said, this album is a bit of a disappointment. The lyrics are cringe worthy at parts and the pace is definitely slower then the last. Vengeful One and Sound of Silence are really the only saving graces here. "The Light" has grown on me thanks to the radio overplaying it too.

I was not tuned into this CD the 1st listen, It did call me back for repeated listens. I like it now. The heavyness is overpowered by the polished production. Skip the cover song and the album is very good. I give it a solid 8.5

Just heard the cover of "Sound Of Silence" ... that's a fantastic cover!