Immortalized

To be perfectly honest, I'd never heard of this band until my wife played me an interweb clip featuring them live, performing Simon & Garfunkel's 'Sound of Silence'. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I have never heard the song performed better, by anybody. And I'm old enough to have the original version on LP.I ordered the LP, 'Immortalised' immediately. It comes as a three sided double LP with the fourth side engraved with a version of the band's logo. I'm no expert, but the cover arwork put me in mind of Iron Maiden and so does most of the rest of the LP. Sort of... Crossed maybe with Metallica, Soundgarden, and a hint of Faith No More. Like I said, I'm no expert.The vocals are consistantly excellent and the recording quality is very good too, at least through my Rega P3 and Brio-R.There's some great music on offer here, the total magnificence of 'Sound of Silence' for me being the highlight, but there are also two or three tracks which seem a little derivative compared to the rest. Melody isn't of prime concern here, although it is there and some of the chord changes reminded me of Aerosmith although the sound here is much heavier, due to the tuning the main guitarist uses along with his interesting pedal effects.Try to get a hearing of this album. You may like it. It's a bit of a grower though, so give yourself time to listen.

I remember listening to Disturbed back in the day. Compared to a lot of the popular nu-metal at the time, these guys had some personality and great hooks in their songs. Somethings don't change and their 2015 album Immortalized is a great heavy metal album that directed my focus back to the band.When I moved on from Disturbed, it was not because their music was bad. It was simply because I was changing and so was my taste in music. After digging up a couple of old albums, I rediscovered Disturbed and felt like catching up on what the band have been up to. Logically that meant start at their new album and go backwards. A decision I mostly certainly did not regret.Despite the fact that Disturbed are on the forefront of jokes in the metal community, second only to Nickelback. These guys have always been a solid band with a great rhythm section with some killer drumming by Mike Wengren. Singer David Draiman has a unique but great voice that not only lends itself nicely to softer songs but to the harder numbers with his strange rhythmic approach to singing. These qualities with Dan Donegan's guitars piled on top make a very recognisable sound, one that is going full force on Immortalized.There are a lot of great tunes from the opening Immortalized, the anthemic The Vengeful One to the typical Disturbed rocker Who Taught You How To Hate. These songs are extremely catchy and are great fun. I really enjoyed their hit singer, a cover of Simon And Garfunkles folk classic, Sound of Silence. It is rather unique for Disturbed and has a nice place on this album. The highlight of the album (in my opinion) is the track The Light. The song starts off rather melodic and has a fairly laid back groove. Don't let that full you into thinking it is a ballad. The track thunders its way to the finish line with some heavy riffs and excellent hooks.Much like most nu-metal bands of Disturbed's generation, they suffer from over production and Immortalized is no different. The drums are a little sterile and everything has a little too much volume for my cup of tea. It didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the record but it would have been nice to hear these songs with a more natural sound.This is a good album, a very good album. I had a great time listening to Immortalized and I hope people will have the sense to judge this record on its own merits rather then what the latest joke is in the metal community. This is by no means a perfect album, I would chop out the tracks Save Our Last Goodbye and Fire It Up for example. But it really holds its own and considering how cheap it goes for, I highly recommend checking it out.Published by Steven Lornie of Demonszone

Good album. Music itself is great. I like the artwork too. However, If this pressing is anything to go by buy the CD or stream it. The surface noise is unacceptable. Records were dirty out of the package so after a wet clean on a VPI cleaning machine, the surface noise was still there. Also lots of little warps, even after using a screw down clamp. Tonearm was moshing along to the music.Another record without antistatic anti-scratch inner sleeves. Getting the records out of the sleeves was a wrestling match due to the static build up. Should not happen on modern releases in my opinion.

I'll be honest, I took a punt on buying this.. I only wanted it for the S&G cover of 'Sound Of Silence'. That track alone was enough for me to justify buying this on glorius 180g vinyl. But as per the joy of listening to LPs on vinyl, you cant just skip tracks, and i'm now glad of that; as the heavy metal tracks, fused with the operatic voice of David Draiman makes for some amazing listening. And the album art is devine too!

When I was told Disturbed had recorded The Sound of Silence one of my favorite songs I did not believe they could have done it justice. I was wrong. It's one of the best versions I have ever heard. I brought the cd for one song I love it because of all the songs. Great jogging / running music, invigorating, energized glad I didn't listen to the critics.