Mid-Week Review: "Immortalized" by Disturbed

Mid-Week Review: Disturbed, Ghost & Act of Defiance

The third week of August played host to many new hard rock/heavy metal releases. This week's review will be focusing on Disturbed's "Immortalized", Ghost's "Meliora" and Act of Defiance's "Birth and the Burial". Each album will be judged track-by-track, with a total average score being presented in the end. Here is review 1 of 3...

IMMORTALIZED

by DISTURBED

1. EYE OF THE STORM

As far as album openers go, I'm thouroughly impressed with Disturbed latest footstep in their path of musicality. The scene begins as lead guitarist Dan Donegan begins to demonstrate his vast knowledge of the fretboard by applying arpeggiated scale licks and aggressive bending technique over what is a relatively calm, yet suspenseful acoustic background sound. Although this kind of intro has been used countless times, it's still a welcoming sound to my ears.

Lyrics: N/A
Musiciality: 4/5
Orginality: 3/5

2. IMMORTALIZED

As "Eye of the Storm" begins to fade out, a familiar sound fades in; Dan Donegan's signature distortion sound. The track is then thrown into Disturbed's signature territory. The sounds of Donegan's aggresive, Drop C, power chord exclusive riffage, accompanied by drummer Mike Wengren's double-bass pounding and John Moyer's almost anthemic bass lines. Alas, David Draiman lets his voice out, and in a magnificent way. The entire song is a nostalgic trip to the "Down with the Sickness" era days with the production quality of today. 

Lyrics: 4/5
Musicality: 3/5
Originality: 2/5

3. THE VENGEFUL ONE

Disturbed's first single prior to the release of "Immortalized" and the first new Disturbed track in over 4 years. Safe to say, this song had a lot of prove about Disturbed's validity as one of the world's biggest metal acts. This track delivers just that, quality lyrics, epic riffage and a somewhat different vibe to what seasoned Disturbed fans receive, but epic none the less. Points are taken away from the lack of any noticeable lead guitar work.\

Lyrics: 5/5
Musicality: 4/5
Originality: 4/5

4. OPEN YOUR EYES

This is the kind of song that makes me want to grab something large and sharp, and swing it into the heads of my enemies. "Open Your Eyes" is by far the most anthemic track on this album, and one that I would be very shocked if this wasnt included as a staple in their live shows. From the lyrics and the voice that delivers them, to the headbang-inducing rhythm of the entire song, "Open Your Eyes" is one of Disturbed's greatest tunes to date.

Lyrics: 5/5
Musicality: 5/5
Originality: 4/5

5. THE LIGHT

This track pisses me off. Such beautiful lyrics, yet such boring instrumental work done durikng the whole song. Not one single catchy hook during the whole song, instead I am treated to repitive chugging of power chords and drum beats with very little variation.

Lyrics: 5/5
Musiciality: 1/5
Originality: 2/5

6. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

Although the lyrics didnt quite grab me this time around, Draiman's deliverance still held strong and kept the boat rowing. The shining point during this track was Mr. Donegan, who woke his fingers up to throw a blisteringly intense and speedy solo at us. It was certainly the icing on the cake of this track, despite the cake claiming to taste like chocolate, but ending up tasting like dirt. Besides the guitar, I am not a fan of this song.

Lyrics: 2/5
Musicality: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

7. YOU'RE MINE

This song just doesn't do it for me. Much like "The Light",there's not much here to really grab a hold of you, this song just starts, plays, then finishes, with no real lyrical message or instrumental showcase to display.

Lyrics: 2/5
Musiciality: 1/5
Originality: 1/5

8. WHO

I began to lose hope with the latter half of this album, with the last two track being very sub-par in my opnion. But "Who" really puts the album back on it's pedestal. The title itself proving extremely hard to determine the message of this song, the listener is put in a position where they must really listen to understand Draiman's subtle messages. Alongside the typical Disturbed-style riffage and even a few lead guitars runs every now and again, "Who" definitely brings back interest to an album where it begins to fade.

Lyrics: 4/5
Musiciality: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

9. SAVE OUR LAST GOODBYE

This song continues from where "Who" left off, in the sense of it's actually good! Although by now in the album, the repetitive guitar and drum work is beginning to run stale, this song has that little bit of uniqueness about it that seperates it from the rest of the album. Not a fantastic song, but compared to some of the tracks on this album, it's a damn good one!

Lyrics: 3/5
Musiciality: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

10. FIRE IT UP

I'm going to keep this short and sweet...this song is garbage. Stupid lyrics and boring instrumental work (save the solo). I understand Draiman uses Marijuana to conceive many of his ideas, but to write a song about it? And actually publish it on your band's renunion album? Go home Dave, you're stoned...

Lyrics: 1/5

Musicality: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

11.  THE SOUND OF SILENCE

It's very hard to imagine Disturbed pulling out a track like this. Calm, beautiful and serene, this track delivers the calm in the middle of the storm that is "Immortalized". I commend the entire band on their deliverance of this track, I definitely want to hear more tracks like this is subsequent albums!

Lyrics: 4/5
Musicality: 4/5
Originality: 4/5

12. NEVER WRONG

Now THIS is what I'm looking for! This is definitely one of the highlights of this album. A different change of pace from Mike Wengren, transitioning from simple rock beats to faster, more upbeat drill beats. This combined with Donegan and Moyer's faster rhythm sections gave this album new life in "Never Wrong", although the lyrics were a bit plain, with not much to offer on a deeper level, I still very much enjoyed this song.

Lyrics: 3/5
Musicality: 5/5
Originality: 4/5

13. WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO HATE

The album closes on a familiar note, with your typical Disturbed riffage, rhythm, lyrics and vocal deliverance being showcased here. There's not much to commend on this song, but neither there anything to condemn. I wish I had more to say with this track, but Im sadly not given many new aspects to review here.

Lyrics: 3/5
Musicality: 3/5
Originality: 2/5

FINAL THOUGHT

I can honestly say that this album has some of the most fantastic heavy metal tracks I've ever heard, accompanied by some of the worst pieces of garbage to grace my ears. Tracks like "The Vengeful One" and "Open Your Eyes" will stand out as my favourite tracks in this album, with the rest being either quite standard or below my expectations.

For band that has had 4 years to refresh themselves and to produce an album that is not only brilliant, but unique, I can safely say that Disturbed had ultimately failed in that goal. Instead, they produced just another god damn Disturbed album.

VERDICT

Lyrics: 41/60

Musicality: 41/60

Originality: 35/60

TOTAL: 62% - CREDIT