Disturbed - Asylum

Thu 2nd Sep, 2010 in Music Reviews

In the past few months, the world of metal has witnessed a number of records that have presented new uncharted highs for bands. Sevendust produced Cold Day Memory, Black Label Society came out with Order of the Black, Slash had his latest solo project released and with Mike Portnoy’s thunderous drumming, Avenged Sevenfold released Nightmare. These albums received wide critical acclaim and certainly have fueled some awesome new material for punters to headbang to.

However it gives me much displeasure to say that Disturbed’s fifth outing Asylum, is not one of these albums. The theme of Asylum, rather than excellence is more that of mediocrity. That’s not to say this album is necessarily terrible. As an album Asylum just fails to meet the hype generated after their extremely well received fourth album – Indestructible.

Asylum as an album actually begins on quite a strong note. Remnants evolves from this eerie ambient string laden intro to one of Dan Donegan’s signature soloing sessions, but it’s largely downhill from there.

There’s no stuffing around as Asylum dives headfirst from this instrumental into its title track, which is perhaps one of the weakest title tracks Disturbed has ever produced. As previously mentioned, it’s certainly not horrible to listen to but it feels incredibly bland. The signature drop tuned palm muted riffs at a fast tempo with industrialish interludes and the very heavily accented vocal lines certainly represent familiar territory for Disturbed, but nothing revolutionary.

At the crux of the problem within the title track is that it really lacks lacks in substance and fails to grab the listener’s attention with anything paticularly interesting, catchy or unusual.

The title track feels very dull as a result, with not even a guitar solo to garner any interest from the listener. In its place is the constant wah laden riffs of Dan Donegan which are significantly worse than the lead work of the opening track. In fact the abuse of the wah pedal on Asylum is almost as bad as Kirk Hammet’s consistent molestation of the poor stomp box.

During the production of the album lead vocalist David Draiman stated that Asylum would be “aggressive, angry, and hard-hitting”. In comparison to Justin Bieber’s latest record perhaps Asylum is, but when compared to previous Disturbed records, Asylum really fails to meet previously demonstrated levels of aggression.

It’s not until the second half of the album that the true Disturbed is unleashed. The first half feels like Disturbed’s St Anger, whilst the second comes a lot closer to the promise of aggression, as well as placing a far greater emphasis on melody which shines through with Draiman’s vocal lines that finally become more melodic and far more memorable, with his vocal performance being in the vein of previous singles, such as Disturbed’s chart topping hit Stricken.

Crucified really presents itself as one of the strongest tracks on the album with more of a traditional Disturbed approach to both writing and structure. Draiman’s vocal hooks finally make an appearance on the record and add a sense of depth and melody whilst making the tracks far more memorable. The lack of these hooks is really one of the key weaknesses of the first half of the album.

Elements also present towards the end of Asylum include Donegan’s chunky open riffing without the constant wah and palm muting and Mike Wengren’s delivery of powerful backbeats with some interesting syncopation to keep driving the track and drawing in the listener. These elements recur in later tracks such as Serpentine and Sacrifice and assist in making up for the lacklustre beginning to album.

After this rollercoaster of highs and lows, Asylum ends on possibly one of the most bizarre notes of ANY metal record of recent times. After this double kick, solo laden record of industrial/nu metal the final (Not so well) “hidden” track is a cover of U2’s With or Without You, which certainly is one hell of a diversification from Disturbed’s typical palate.

Their take on one of the defining tracks of the 80s, from what is considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time – that being the Joshua Tree, is actually quite convincing. Aside from the rather bizarre industrialesque intro and a few unnecessary whammy tricks and some unusual guitar work on the part of Donegan, it’s quite a unique and interesting cover and certainly adds a very Disturbed flavour to the track.

Overall Asylum presents fans with a metal record that’s certainly far from the worst released of late, but at the same time it’s far from the best. A strong finish to the record helps to make up for the lacklustre beginning to the record and ultimately leads to an album that can’t be described as bad, but fails to be as good as Indestructible or 10,000 Fists.

At the very least, Asylum will give punters an opportunity to catch Disturbed on a world tour at some point in the next year, perhaps during festival season next year in all of their U2 chugging glory.