Lista de Bandas Nu Metal Disturbed (USA-1) The Sickness

It's been a while since I was fervently listening to Disturbed's music. Don't get me wrong, I like their music a lot, and they were one of the first bands I got into, I still lean towards music that I'm not familiar with to get me into new things. I know that I'm still a Disturbed fan because, at any given time, I can get into listening to Disturbed. Just today, I bought the 10th anniversary of The Sickness in colored vinyl. It was great hearing those songs again; they brought back a lot of memories. Now, because of the new Disturbed album that's on its way, I'm reviewing The Sickness, Disturbed's debut album.

The Sickness is, compared with Disturbed’s more recent albums like Ten Thousand Fists and Indestructible, is more primal and simplistic, but that doesn’t prevent it from being heavier and probably the most diverse Disturbed album released so far. It opens up with Voices, which has become one of my favorite Disturbed songs, and continues on from there. Quickly the album sets itself apart from the other Nu Metal bands around by having a unique front man, David Draiman, who can do a lot more with his vocals than have a soft tone and a scream. At this point in their career, Disturbed's hilight was definitely Draiman. He adds a lot of interest into the songs by having a great vocal range, and, unlike the other Nu Metal frontman Corey Taylor of Slipknot, he can actually perform live. Another thing I’ve always liked about this album is the way the songs can make you feel. They’re strong and get you pumped up (“The Game” is a good example of what I mean) and even though the songs have a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus pattern, devoid of guitar solos, there’s still a certain appeal to this album that I love. Best of all, The Sickness doesn’t fall into the Nu Metal crowd with songs about how bad your life is and sit around whining. It concentrates more in strengths rather than weaknesses and trivialities of every day teen life.

Some of the better songs in this album include Voices (“are you breathing, do the wicked see YOU?”), Violence Fetish (though it desperately needs a solo somewhere in there), and Numb (it doesn’t need to be fast to be heavy). The weaker songs are “Want” (nothing interesting really happens in it) and “Conflict” (again, not much going on, but I do like that quiet interlude around 3:03 because it shows that a slow and quiet section can really make the song feel more interesting). Now, since I am reviewing the 2010 edition, let’s talk about the bonus songs. I’ve heard both of them before, so I knew what they were like before buying the vinyl. They were originally B-Sides, so naturally they aren’t as good as the rest of Disturbed’s stuff. God of the Mind is cool at first, but it’s blatantly repetitive and just doesn’t pack that much of a punch, musically or otherwise. A Welcome Burden is better, although it is considerably slower. Again, it doesn’t do to much. So those bonus songs really aren’t too big of an improvement; I personally think the album is better when it ends with “Meaning of Life”, but that’s just my opinion.

So, that’s my review of Disturbed’s debut. Not my favorite brand of music, but it still has a crunch that reminds me of Rammstein’s first album. It really is quite different than the other Disturbed albums, and I recommend it to any Disturbed fan that hasn’t heard it yet. I still enjoy listening to this album, (it sounds great on my record player) and I get nostalgic memories from when I first heard Disturbed whenever I listen to it.

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I much prefer Disturbed's newer works to their older music. It's more melodic, inspiring, and just plain better. However, that's not saying their older work is no good...
The Sickness is much heavier then Indestructible, and the overall style is very different. Much more screaming... and swearing...

A very good album altogether, although, as usual, some tracks are better then others. Some of my favorites are (in no particular order) :
Down with The Sickness,
The Game,
Voices,
Violence Fetish,
Shout 2000 (an excellent cover, much better then the original song),
Fear,
and Dropping Plates (for some reason, no one seems to like this one. I guess it took me some getting used to).

The other tracks, well, I'm not saying their bad songs, but I just don't care for them. Except Stupify... I'm neutral on that one.

A pretty good album, especially for Disturbed's first album, but they just get better and better with each album they make. Who knows... maybe their next album will be the best one yet !