Band's List Nu Metal Disturbed (USA-1) Indestructible

Finally I'm going to get to talk about Indestructible. When I got into Disturbed in '06, Ten Thousand Fists was already out and about, so Indestructible became the first Disturbed album to come out while I was a fan. At the time, Disturbed was my favorite band bar none, and naturally I was really excited.

I was there at my local HMV the day it came out, and I bought it right away. Now, I've had this album for almost three years, and I've had time to develop my opinions and really consider this album over that time. So anyways, let's move into talking about it.

The first thing to say is how this album changes the playing field for Disturbed compared to their previous three albums. The album seems to have lost quite a bit of its agression, but it makes up for it with improved instrumentation and a somewhat more consistent atmosphere. As an improvement, almost every song has a guitar solo in it, so Disturbed's guitarist, Dan Donegan, is better utilized than on previous albums. Not only that, but the album seems to have a sleek flow to it that probably comes from the fact that the members of Disturbed seem to mesh better now than before.

Of course, this album does have it's share of problems.
I'll start with the tone. Throughout the album, the songs take a rather samesey tone; they don't seem to differ all that drastically from one another. I know I just mentioned that the atmosphere is more consistent, but I'll say that it IS possible to maintain a consistent atmosphere without having to make all the songs have the same tone (listen to Dsiturbed's debut album The Sickness and you'll see what I mean). Now, keep in mind that while the songs do have a sort of samesy-ness to them, they aren't completely monotonous and while the album does get a tad boring here and there, it isn't horribly boring. Now, I can say that even the tone itself has its flaws. There isn't as much oomph or power in this album as in The Sickness or 10,000 Fists, which kinda breaks down what Disturbed is about. It's my understanding that Disturbed is meant to be a kind of impowering comfort to people with problems (can anyone say 'teenage demographic'?), and this album just doesn't deliver that. The power isn't nearly as prevalent as it used to be, and the feeling of being able to break through a brick wall is few and far between. Of course you could say that Disturbed is trying new things. They're going for a different approach. I can totally understand that; one of my favorite bands (Empyrium) used to be black metal, but they went folk, and the transition worked perfectly. This transition is a little shakier, and the emotional strength isn't really there. I will say that this album isn't as heavy as previous Disturbed albums, but that doesn't mean that the music can't have emotional punch. Overburdened is one of Disturbed's slowest songs, but it has more emotional goodies than most other songs by them. Where is that sort of thing here? It feels left out and forgotten.

Next is song structure.
I've always regarded structure to be Disturbed's biggest flaw. I think that if they really went innovative on structure, they'd improve drastically as a band. But you may be wondering what I have against their structure. Well, it's extremely run-of-the-mill. It's the radio-friendly verse-chorus-verse-chorus-climax-chorus pattern. Like we've never heard it before. Worse still, more and more emphasis is put into a long and catchy chorus, and now the chorus eats up and consumes Disturbed's songs. In earlier albums, they knew how to use a chorus...WITHOUT having it take up 70% of the song. The chorus and verse worked together and weaved into each other in a nice way, and both the chorus and verse were important. In Indestructible, all the emphasis is put into the chorus, and the verse seems to be skimmed over. See, when a song is 70% chorus, you get a lot of marketability, and a lot of people will go around with a lackluster chorus kicking around in their head all day, eventually returning home to listen to more Disturbed. It's a nice little trick, but it lacks substance. It lacks creativity. I think the band could easily follow more advanced song structures, and they could (and should) throw off the cheap song structures that they've been doing for the past while. And let me say that having every chorus presented in the same way, the same Ostinato, gets boring. I'm trying as hard as I can not to keep referencing Tool, but I have to do it here. Look at Tool's two-part song Parabol/Parabola. In ten minutes, the chorus is presented four times, and each time it's given a different twist, a different vibe, that coincides with where the song is going, hence, SONG PROGRESSION. About six tenths of the songs in Indestructible don't seem to really go anywhere, and don't really progress much past the verse-chorus pattern I mentioned before, making a lot of the album seem blasé and uninspired.

Now, let's talk about a few songs in detail.
Indestructible. As in Ten Thousand Fists, the title song comes up first, and it's designed to be the song to get you pumped, to get you singing along enthusiastically. Not to mention this is a great song to play live. Every Disturbed fan knows the chorus of this song off by heart, and you better Believe when Disturbed plays this live, practically everyone in the crowd will be screaming that chorus. It fills a concert hall, for sure. As I said before, the chorus takes up much of this song, but being as it is the first track, that's forgivable. The song has a little bit of a watered-down low-key tone to it, making it easily accessibe for people who haven't heard Disturbed before. In short, the song is meant to catch the ears of potential fans.

The Night. Probably my favorite song off Indestructible. Starts up with a really nice winding riff, and right fro the start I could tell it was gonna be a standout. It has a dynamicism to it, an EPICNESS to it that other songs on here don't even compare to. It's quite dark, it has a good menacing feeling, and best of all... THE CHORUS ISN'T ALL CONSUMING! Yeah, the verse holds just as much water as the chorus, and that makes the song seem way more solid than any of the others. I don't 100% like the lead-in to the chorus (the part where Draiman says 'let my armour fall again'), as it sounds a little cheesy, but other than that, great song. The guitars and drums are particularly good in this one; there's a wild and awesome solo, and the drums are really well-played. They sound tribal, really heavy, and they have a great variety to them. I only wish they were higher in the production for this song.

Perfect Insanity. For those that don't know this, Perfect Insanity is an old, old Disturbed song. I think it's actually the first song Disturbed recorded. And I had heard the original many times. It was nitty-gritty balls to the wall agressive, like getting smacked in the face with a 2 by 4. It kinda has that tone that classic mosh pit faves like 'Bodies' by Drowning Pool or 'BombsHell' by Powerman 5000 has. Draiman's voice is wild and undisciplined, but it's really heavy. Now, the new version on Indestructible doesn't stand up to the original much. It's quite glossy and watered down, and I get the feeling that it has boundaries, like it's almost afraid of going too far with the heaviness and losing its catchiness. That's another thing, it's absurdly catchy. The only thing improved about it is the guitar solo. There was a solo in both, but the solo in the original was a few sustain notes on guitar that I could play with my eyes closed. The solo in the new one is much more technically involved, and fast to boot. Other than the guitar solo, the original Perfect Insanity was better.

So that's Indestructible for you. It has its ups and downs, its good moments and its bad ones, so it's a passable album. Disturbed has put out better in the past, for sure, but up to this point, Indestructible was Disturbed's most instrumentally involved album.
To me, Indestuctible is like a super-sexy supermodel. Marketable, attractive, and you'll like it at first, but deep down there isn't much to it. There isn't much intelligence, and there isn't anything beneath the surface. While no song on here is inherently bad, there isn't much that stands out. Sure, Indestructible does have the odd song that's pretty good (like Facade, The Night, or The Curse, and to a lesser extent, Torn), there just isn't enough to make this album a great. The good songs are few and far between, and I get rather bored at some points, most notably the stretch of time between The Night and The Curse, but I'm never at the point where I'm praying for the album to end. Indestructible is a good album, plain and simple. It's not bad, but it isn't great either.

An absolutely awesome album, if I do say so myself. Disturbed's old albums were good, but Indestructible really takes their music to the next level. From the siren intro to Indestructible to the final notes of Facade, this album keeps you on the edge of your seat. It's kind of disappointing when it ends... could have used a few more tracks...

Anyways, all of the band members are at their best, and sound wonderful. Draiman's vocal are dark, yet inspiring, and the language content is just low enough that the album escapes a parental advisory warning. Donegan's guitar work is simply beyond belief, with rapid delivery, amazing riffs, and insane solos. Moyer's bass is a good backing to the guitar. And Wengren's drum work-especially on Perfect Insanity-is excellent.

Altogether, their best album yet. Some of the songs are better then others, (I won't go into my personal favorites) but, together, they are the excellent work that makes up Indestructible.

Disturbed's 2008 LP release "Indestructible" expands beyond the tried and true boundaries of nu metal to a more accessible and well rounded style of music. The best song on the album, "The Night" catches with a very well defined hook and affirming guitar solo. A couple other songs, "Torn" and "Divide" feature chorus lines that are soft around the edges, too, with "Divide" also benefiting from a highlighted solo. "Inside the Fire" is downright industrial with mechanical tones and a repetitive cadence. Nu metal staples such as alternating hard/soft and fast/slow songwriting is sparse; "Divide" being the only noticable exception. In general, the music is tempered with a stop/go style of rhythm guitar play that makes even the hardest and fastest parts soft to the touch. The guitar riffs, dominated by the rhythm lines with the lead parts relegated to the background ("Deciever" and "Perfect Insanity"), are simple, choppy, and repetitive. Although "Criminal" may boast Disturbed's signature sound better with it's discordant nu metal finish, it's lead/rhythm trade off at the end is more the exception than say, "Divide" with its fast, choppy rhythm riffs, trippy lead effects, and alternating hard/soft writing structure. "Haunted" is also a track that harks exception with is bass line introduction, a feature not heard anywhere else. On the whole, "Indestructible" is a well defined display of commanding drumming, hard but simple riffing, and vocal instrumentalization via parts spoken/rapped/and whispered ("Enough", "Criminal", and "Haunted" showcases those vocal strains very well). Lead vocalist David Draiman's rich tone is the anchor of Disturbed's sound, and as such each song lives and breathes through him. What makes "Indestructible" then a most pleasurable album is that cohesiveness between voice and music. "Indestructible" is therefore not only a well concieved record, but a well delivered one as well.

This is a Disturbed album right...?

This album is weak... The music is softer than before, and boring. Even the introduction of at least one guitar solo in every song can’t save it. The music is still ‘Disturbed’ in the way that you simply can’t tie a genre to it (or should that read, ‘tie it to a specific genre’ ?). Some people might call it ‘Alternative’, but, what the fuck does that mean ?


Dave Draiman’s vocals in this album are clean and soft. He seems to have lost his edge. I, personally, was quite disappointed at the lack of bizarre noises Draiman made that were common throughout a lot of Disturbeds songs. Each album had a song or two that were softer than the rest, and / or had cleaner vocals, (e.g. Believe – Darkness). To me, it seems as if the band has become a lot more serious. After ‘The Sickness’, Disturbeds lyrics became noticeably more involved (for lack of a better word), they started carrying a meaning, even if the lyrics didn’t obviously relate to anything in real life, they still had substance, as opposed to the comedic feel of ‘Meaning Of Life’ or ‘Dropping Plates’. The lyrics in this album are quite deep, but I’m not going to interpret all the songs in this review, and, everyone’s going to have their own interpretation of each song, so there is really no point here, perhaps in a forum discussion....


Even though their music is softer, and Draiman has slacked off in his vocal effects, the band have improved quite a lot in other directions, the songs are on average slightly longer, and, despite what I’ve said about Draiman, he has improved as a vocalist, he sings the lyrics, with less of a ‘rappy’ feel that was evident throughout the early stuff... With the exception of ‘Perfect Insanity’, which actually feels more like a Disturbed song, but really doesn’t suit the album... strange aye ?


All in all, this album, despite its flaws, and its less Disturbing feel than its predecessors, it isn’t a bad album. If I didn’t know of Disturbed, and this album was played to me, I think I’d be able to enjoy it more. As long as you don’t compare it to much to the older albums, ‘Indestructible’ is quite good as a stand alone album (Its not one of my faves though...) but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who wants to start getting into Disturbed.