Review Summary: Disturbed+Attempted Industrial
With the hiatus of nu-metal band Disturbed, leading vocalist David Draiman wasn't ready to quit the music business, and with that came the promise of an industrial side project. Collecting friends and studio time, Draiman's new project was doomed to fall into Disturbed's shadow one way or another and the resulting first outing has some very interesting aspects to it.
Not many side project bands can really pull off a worse sound then the original outfit, but for some reason, Device is able to take everything that made Disturbed fall, and put it into a collection of terrible songs. You Think You Know, the starting track to this album shows a sound reflecting off of The Sickness, only with a aged Draiman, who's former growl-like singing has began to decline. The guitars fall to endless chugging, and even when trying to blend together with the rest of the band, they seem to fail in power, weakening whatever momentum the song had tried to obtain. This seems to be the case with the first half of the album, falling into weak choruses, lyrics that are unusually hate filled, even for Draiman's standards, and failed guitars that weaken the album quite a bit.
Around the middle of the album, Device's momentum starts to lift up, with Hunted showing a bit of the industrial side of the intended sound. The guitar isn't too muddy and chuggy, and the vocals Draiman delivered seem to be empowered more than previous tracks. Opinion features some presence from Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, and this song easily is the best on the album. The guitar is very melodic, following Draiman's lead very well, and support from the drums and bass, which is quite audible give a boost to the album. The lyrics are a bit repetitive, however they follow the song quite nicely, and with backing effects from Morello, the song finishes strong. The album shortly after falls back down into mediocrity, losing most of the build up it received, and trading it for recycled ideas from Disturbed.
Haze which has vocal work from M. Shadows, vocally is the strongest on the album. Draiman and M. Shadows sound very well together trading off parts tightly, and the industrial feel of the song gives a good backing feel, however shortly after the first minute of the song, the song once again falls in being over repetitive, a theme commonly found throughout this entire release. While a good attempt at keeping his name alive, Draiman has fallen into the mainstream and failed at delivering a powerful debut for what could have been a promising band.
Pros:
Some good guest work throughout the album.
Strong instruments at some points
Decent lyrics
Cons:
Over-use of chugs
Weak delivery of material
Sounds to much like a fallen Disturbed
