Review Summary: Another fallacy is laid in front of me.
Up to this point, Disturbed had progressed in one way or another between each album.
Believe was so much better than
The Sickness, as it was a harder and more matured record.
Ten Thousand Fists lost some of the momentum from
Believe by bringing back the unfortunate trait of boring filler from the first record and fell behind a little lyrically, but also showed mastery of blending electronics and modern metal as well as the brilliant “Overburdened”. And though these three records were all strong, Disturbed needed to pull the rabbit out of the hat, especially this time around, because things were starting to get a little stale. So what did
Indestructible bring? A more melodic record, but ultimately not enough progression.
Indeed, this album reaches back to
The Sickness in the fact that melody is emphasized greatly over heaviness, and there’s an even greater emphasis on electronics. Dan sticks to slinking leads and solos much more than the punchy riffs from the past two records, especially on the title track. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, as songs like “Inside The Fire” (which burns with a fantastic industrial metal feel) and “The Night” display some of his best work yet. David stays predominantly in the low range and rarely brings some of the screams/yelps heard in the past, though proves he can sound just as fine there on tracks like “The Night” and “Indestructible”. “Perfect Insanity” finds him growling and seething like a man possessed, which only serves to immerse the listener further into schizophrenic, dark rambling. Speaking of this track, it’s one of the only ones where the drums truly shine. The other one is “Haunted”, which leans back to a song like “Overburdened” with the drums-and-bass dominated slow-build of an intro. Unfortunately, the rest of the song sounds like “I’m Alive” 2.0 and does come off as bland and repetitive after a while. Electronics weave tastefully through an intricate guitar riff
Ten Thousand Fists style in “The Curse”, not to mention the chorus having a pretty decent vocal performance.
But as stated earlier, there’s really not enough progression. “Divide” sounds like a horrible
The Sickness b-side (think “Droppin Plates” but at a faster tempo), “Criminal” is a horrible, lazy blend of “Sons of Plunder” and “Droppin Plates”, you get the idea. There is a great deal of filler and this album probably should’ve been condensed. Lyrically, the record is as inconsistent as
The Sickness was musically. At times the topics are dark and quite serious (“Inside The Fire” describes the suicide of David’s girlfriend when he was fifteen and how haunted he was by it), but statements like “I’m one impressive motherf**ker” and “I’m an indestructible master of war” are cheesy at best and cannot possibly be taken seriously.
So why is this album a 2.5, even lower than
The Sickness? It’s all in the context.
The Sickness was released at the height of popularity for nu-metal and, though not perfect, manage to show potential and show up some of its peers. Not to mention it was a young band’s first album. But after two albums of progression, the band should’ve known better, and in light of this, this album mainly just comes off as lazy, dare I say boring. However, if this is the album you’ve used or are using to get into the group, it probably won’t bug you as much, but again, context is key. The recommended tracks might be worth a download, but this is generic and easily skippable.
