Disturbed - Indestructible
Chicago nu-metallers Disturbed return following a short set at the recent Metal Hammer Award shows to release their fourth full length album “Indestructible”.
Now, the problem with Disturbed is that I’ve not actually met anyone who will admit to really liking them. They’ve never really been fashionable possibly due to the post 2000 nu-metal backlash.
I do know however that everyone who claims not to like them owns at least two of their previous albums. As far as I’m concerned however they’ve always been the band who wrote ‘The Sickness’, the firm favourite rock club classic. the one that everybody knows and everybody dances too but still believe it’s by some band called ‘Drowning Pool’.
So anyway, here we have ‘Indestructible’ the fourth release from the alternative rockers. The first thing that strikes me particularly about this record is that it’s catchy. Not in a pop way but in the fact that the songs are particularly well crafted and there’s a great deal of melody thrown in. Disturbed have always had this penchant for melody but it seems with ‘Indestructible’ they’ve taken this to a whole new level. They’ve grown up and along with dropping their nu-metal tag to ‘alternative metal’ they’ve also calmed down a bit and produced some more mature sounding songs. The sort that will have you singing along after a few listens.
In fact it seems they’ve ditched their industrial, nu-metal sound altogether and concentrated a great deal more on everything that will make this record sound more accessible and they’ve certainly achieved this.
It's also worth noting that there are actual guitar solos on this album and the aggression has been toned down a great deal. Of course David Draiman’s staccato vocals are still in full swing but this is something that has always differentiated this band. You certainly know a Disturbed record when you hear one, (apart from when you think it’s Drowning pool though!)
So in all it’s not a bad effort, it’s just more matured, but perhaps this is just due to the band themselves growing and wanting to do something different. It’s worth noting here that it’s a self produced record, so they’ve not had guidance on what sounds good or in fact bad. It’s certainly an accessible record as were the previous works and the emphasis on melody and lyricism is strong.
Once an aggressive, industrial-heavy metal band, to a band that has embraced melody and toned their once pulse-pounding sound down to appeal more to the mainstream.
The die hard Disturbed fans will be sure to like this, as will anyone with a liking for the heavier melodic stuff. The metal community on the other hand might have a few choice words to say about this. As for me, I like it as much as I like Nickelback’s latest.