Home Album Reviews Rock Album Review: Disturbed – Immortalized

Album Review: Disturbed – Immortalized

After almost five years Disturbed return with their new album they kept secret from everyone, including their families and diehard fanbase.

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Text Review:

It can be difficult to keep quiet about upcoming projects if you are in the music business, especially when you need to promote your upcoming work.  Word of mouth and advertising is what can make a huge difference in sales and in an age where free streaming music is at everyone’s finger tips, promoting your upcoming work can be the difference in a big payout and a seven cent royalty check.

Even bigger names in the industry are becoming victim to situations like this.  However that did not deter Disturbed when keeping quiet on their first album in over four years.  Immortalized was recorded and finished back in January but not a word was said until this summer.  Their first album in over four years had been kept a secret from even the most diehard Disturbed fans.

And What’s even more shocking is that Disturbed had started writing and working on Immortalized in January of 2014.  Not even friends and family were informed of the future release.  In a quote from Draiman on Loudwire, he stated that “We wanted to return when we collectively had that fire underneath us. We missed it so much that we could tap into this energy and deliver the right album. We did it on our own terms.”

So even in the midst of different ventures and side projects by Draiman and company, the actual announcement of new material and the release of the first single The Vengeful One caused a social media spike from every music outlet and from millions of Disturbed fans who have been waiting for the follow up to 2010’s Asylum.

With the promise of rejuvenation and a fire underneath them, The Vengeful One was the first look at Disturbed after their longest hiatus to date – and with it we got Disturbed in their full glory and unique style.

The Vengeful One in every way was the best choice of a song to give longtime Disturbed fans and introduce new listeners to their sound.  Draiman’s vocals are patterned and elevated with the perfect timing and delivery with the guitar riffs carrying the song from beginning to end, and some absolutely brutal – high-paced drum bashing from Mike Wengren.

The familiarity of Disturbed is something that rock fans have become accustomed with since the year 2000.There are some bands who you can describe as sounding like one another, but then there is Disturbed who are their own entity.  A song like the Vengeful One is proof of that with the build in intensity behind Draiman and the lyrics that make you feel like a Greek deity or supervillain when you sing them.

What may surprise people who are not Disturbed fans or may feel they only have one sound, Immortalized has a surprising range in style with upbeat tracks like The Light and the cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence.

Disturbed have been known to cover songs before like Shout and Land of Confusion, but with The Sound of Silence it truly feels like this was as personal of an experience for the band as it was for the original writers.  The solemn piano notes and the quite opening that leads to slowly added strings and acoustics all with a surprisingly calm and paced Draiman is something that is hard to do justice by just talking about it.

There are a few dips in the album that take you out of the experience, but Immortalized will prove something too many Disturbed naysayers who claim that EVERY song of theirs sounds the same.  While their style is unique and therefore their sound will feel very similar when comparing various songs, this album has proof that the band not only has the talent and ability to do whatever they want, but that they can do it any WAY they want.

In the eyes of their fans Disturbed can do no wrong, while in the eyes of their detractors every song will sound identical.  Regardless of which side of the fence you are on, Immortalized has proof that they are capable of varying their sound while still staying wholly faithful to the sound that made them famous.

Overall, Immortalized continues the tradition of Disturbed’s no non-sense intensity and creativity in providing music that will make mother’s cry when they find their children listening to it.  While not every song is perfect, this album is definitely worth listening to and finding the hidden gems that only a band like Disturbed is capable of.