If I had to describe Disturbed’s 4th studio album, Indestructible, in a short sentence, I would call it, “A mo’ mainstream-friendly The Sickness that aged better”: we still have the spoopy sound & subject matter & theatrics, but with mo’ professional musicianship & production, fewer awkward elements like the infamous parental abuse crashout during the bridge o’ “Down with the Sickness”, & fewer cringe nu-metal elements that haven’t aged well. Unfortunately, that makes it less interesting & weird than The Sickness; but it is mo’ consistent.

It is also a better representation o’ Disturbed’s actual sound: while they would switch up sounds a bit thru their 1st 4 albums, the albums following Indestructible would mostly stick to its mainstream theatrical spoopy sound, with mo’ shitty electronic o’erproduction — they called it the “Imagine Dragons Effect” — & sappier melodies later on, especially after the abomination that was their cover o’ “The Sound of Silence”, to diminishing returns, unfortunately.

1. Indestructible

This album starts with some fine cheese with this song that is either trying to compare the band’s success to indestructible masters of war or trying to butter up military folk, a big demographic o’ theirs, so I hear. Either way, the way they describe war sounds mo’ like a video game for preteens rather than the actual horrors o’ war. & yet this song’s lyrics are so infectious, the way Draiman scat-sings, “INDESTRUCTIBLE / DETERMINATION THAT IS INCORRUPTIBLE”.

Grade: A

Music Video

I don’t e’en know what’s going on in this music video: it starts with Draiman’s bald head covering half the screen greenscreened o’er an explosion in the corner followed by the band greenscreened o’er a wasteland from a movie set while random scenes o’ cave men, tribes men, samurai, & modern soldiers in camouflage run around & shout, but don’t do anything else. I guess this is meant to show how humanity has been involved in wars since their beginning. That’s deep bro. Also deep is comparing a line from this song to a famous quote from Julius Caesar @ the beginning.

Grade: C

2. Inside the Fire

OK, but this song is e’en better than “Indestructible”, with its verses scat-sung so quickly that most people have no idea what Draiman is saying. Joke’s on them: e’en if they could hear what he was saying, they’d be scratching their heads @ such lines as, “Devon, 1 of 11”. ¿Who are the other 10? We’ll ne’er know. ¿Why does this character have a weird name like Devon? So Draiman could rhyme it in the line, “Devon won’t go to heaven”. See, this song is ’bout how the protagonist’s girlfriend has committed suicide & how the protagonist needs to make a deal with the devil & give his soul to Satan, too, so he can join her in hell. A perfect Halloween spooky song for a Halloween spooky band like Disturbed, made e’en better by the cheesy laugh @ the end. E’en mo’ than “Indestructible”, this song’s chorus is unbearably catchy, especially with its opening line, “Give your soul to me for eternity”, as are, ’course, the equally corny verses.

Weirdly, despite how silly this song is, it’s apparently inspired by someone Draiman actually knew who committed suicide after he broke up with her. I always thought ’twas weird that Draiman would want to rejoin someone he broke up with, but according to Genius.com, who ne’er lie, he only broke up with her ’cause she was threatening him ’cause she was a junky & he thought the devil was actually talking to him. That reminds me o’ when my dad told me as a kid that he thought the devil possessed him when he woke up in the morn, causing him to bonk his head gainst the top o’ his bed. Also, I’m amused by the implications that his parents wouldn’t approve o’ his relationship, — whether ’cause she’s a junky or a dirty gentile, we’ll ne’er know — but would be less aghast @ him shooting heroin.

Fun fact: near after this single joined the radiowaves round 2007, an afternoon show that played on Seattle’s main buttrock station, the cleverly named “99.9 The Rock” — said afternoon show, I shit you not, was named “The Men’s Room” & had the kind o’ boomer bro comedy you’d expect with that name, & I think is still on in this year of our Luigi 2025 — made a parody o’ this song where they changed the lyrics to be ’bout 7-11 stores & apparently played that song for all the band members sans David Draiman during an interview to their amusement. Tragically, I could not find any capture o’ this anywhere online, so it will have to remain a figment o’ my teenaged memory.

Grade: S

Music Video

Sigh. Man, the fact that a real-world suicide was ’hind this song really puts a bummer on how hilarious this music video is. When Draiman sees his girlfriend hanging from the ceiling, he shouts, “¡NO!”, like in a Looney Tunes cartoon. ¿How am I not s’posed to laugh @ that? If that’s the devil’s temptation, he’s good @ his job & I am not strong ’nough to avoid the flames o’ damnation.

The rest o’ the music video doesn’t help: after laughing… for some reason… he hugs his dead girlfriends legs for, like, half a minute while making exaggerated facial expressions & then cuts her down, puts her in a bath, & starts washing her. In addition to the nice suicide warning @ the beginning o’ the music video, maybe we should have a warning not to tamper with the body & to call 911 immediately afterward to avoid getting in trouble with the law & looking suspicious. Afterward, our protagonist finds a convenient machine gun just hanging on the wall — another useful warning for the audience: don’t leave guns, especially big-ass machine guns, just hanging on the wall; lock that shit up — as a blood-smeared version o’ his girlfriend tempts him to just do it. He ends up putting the gun in his mouth, but then we jump to him screaming while wrapped up in a straitjacket in a white padded room. Yes, that’s what this music video will do to you.

Grade: 😈

3. Deceiver

I really like the melodies in this song, especially the chorus, but always found the final line o’ the chorus, “you’ve mastered the art o’ deceiving me now”, really corny & awkward. Like, yeah, someone who lied to you did in fact do a great job o’ deceiving you: that’s the definition o’ “deceiving”. I could say something similar ’bout the bridge: I like the goblin voice Draiman puts on, ¿but what is this ’bout a “little puppet” you keep asking to not die? Those lines sound like they came straight from a different song.

Grade: B

4. The Night

This song is different from most Disturbed songs in that, if anything, it’s the music, particularly the opening guitar riffs, that are nice, while this song doesn’t have Draiman’s best vocals, which sound strained & screechy. This is a song that would really benefit from smoother, smokier vocals, like the kind Adam Gontier from Three Days Grace had. Just imagine this song sung by him — ¡dare tell me I’m not cooking with this recipe! Also with lyrics like these —

¿are you gonna deny the savior
in front of your eyes?
stare into the night

— this sounds like yet another nu-metal ✝-rock band, like Skillet. Tell me those don’t sound like lyrics Skillet would write — ¡dare tell me I’m not cooking with this recipe! I, for 1, am not feeling particularly disturbed by this song.

Grade: C

Music Video

Also, the music video sucks — apparently so much that Disturbed doesn’t have it on their official channel, for some reason. It’s just the band playing in a garage while Draiman sits in front o’ a car & makes funny faces. Since we ne’er see outside, we don’t e’en know if it’s night time.

5. Perfect Insanity

¡Hell yeah! ¡Now here’s a Disturbed song! Those opening distorted drums; the “¡AH AH AH AH AH OW!”; & the cartoonishly sinister verses; the growling, pleading pre-chorus repeating, “please let me out…”; & the batshit chorus where Draiman switches erratically from shouting & singing melodically, singing slowly & methodically & quicking scatting ( no, not the poop kind ). & then we have the breakdown @ the bridge where Draiman monologues insane ramblings from the back o’ his throat. If this isn’t a spoopy Muertoween song, I don’t know what is.

Apparently this song was originally written before The Sickness, & there exists an earlier 1998 demo version on YouTube when Draiman still had hair. It’s crazy to hear Disturbed sounding mo’ like an early 90s metal band — it has a Megadeth-like sound that is strikingly lacking from their 2000s work. Honestly, I think I might prefer this earlier version — I certainly appreciate the mo’ prominent bassline, bass being the most common casualty o’ o’erproduction.

Grade: 🎃

6. Haunted

Another great spoopy song, with its opening sounds o’ thunder & rain, the bell tolls, whate’er that weird beeping is @ the beginning, & the slowly building drums & riffs, followed by Draiman raspily ranting @ how vaguely mean the world is like the Joker, while singing in a mo’ melancholy & melodic lament during the chorus how “haunted” he is by said world, till the bridge, where the music slows down again & Draiman rants in a deep, throaty voice. Like pulp horror fiction, this song is full o’ imagery-laden spoopy language, talking ’bout “subhuman parasites thrown into a feeding frenzy with the smell of fresh blood”. It’s not particularly original, but neither is pulp horror fiction.

Grade: 🦇

7. Enough

¿What is this sappy shit? The last thing I want to hear from growly monster David Draiman is him in falsetto crying, “when your soul is frozen, ¿is that enough?”. I mean, I am feeling disturbed by this song, but not for the reasons I should. I guess I kinda like the bridge where he puts on this weird imp voice & shouts, “¿HAVEN’T THEY SUFFERED ENOUGH?”, but it’s not good ’nough to make up for the whiny chorus.

“Enough” is written to be a message to the world leaders who partake in war. Showing them all the pain they’ve caused and asking them; “Isn’t death alone a good enough reason to stop all of this conflict?”

Genius

I don’t know what to laugh @ mo’: the idea o’ pretending that the world leaders are going to take advice from a nu-metal band o’ all people or the irony o’ this coming from the guy who would later infamously sign missiles attacking Gaza.

Grade: D

8. The Curse

That’s better. This has a pretty fun opening theme, a pretty fun guitar solo, & has pretty catchy verses — tho I feel the chorus is just kinda average. It’s pretty OK for a deep cut.

Grade: B

9. Torn

In contrast, this song has average verses, but I really like the dragged-out dour melody o’ the chorus. The music might be some o’ the least interesting on this album so far: e’en the guitar solo just sounds like squeaky noodling rather than any kind o’ coherent composition.

Grade: B

10. Criminal

I can remember that these last few tracks are when I would start to lose attention as a teen, as I remember these tracks far less.

& yet, this is possibly the weirdest song on this album, musically & lyrically: this song constantly drops its title, “criminal”, but the “criminal” in question is… ¿the suffering the protagonist feels? & this song is mo’ a generic nu-metal “I want to commit suicide” song. Man, the people who made fun o’ Linkin Park’s “Crawling” — which, mind you, was ’bout drug addiction, not suicidal ideation; but that’s irrelevant — must’ve ne’er listened to other nu-metal songs, ’cause that song’s lyrics seem good in comparison. It seems like the protagonist is implying that it’s criminal that such a mean world imprisons him in keeping him alive, which, granted, isn’t an unheard o’ thought from suicidal people, but despite the word “criminal” just thrown in many times, the lyrics don’t do much to make the connection themselves.

Also, the clinical way the protagonist calls committing suicide, “quickening my end”, is also weird, not unlike the monotone way Jacoby Shaddix described the protagonist’s suicidal ideation in “Last Resort”, another poorly written nu-metal suicide song.

& then you get these goofy-ass lyrics repeated many times in the bridge:

¿you wanna know?
¿you want a name?
¿you want to call me motherfucker?

Like, ¿what does that e’en mean? ¿Why would anyone want to call you “motherfucker”? — Well, other than the aforementioned signing your name on missiles; but that came years after, & I’m hoping Draiman wasn’t planning on doing that for o’er a decade, thinking to himself when he saw the footage on October 7, { Now is finally the time I fulfill what I planned on that deepcut 15 years ago… }.

The music is also odd, starting with a peculiar lethargy for such subject matter, sounding mo’ like it’s going to introduce a spooky game show. ( I should also add that Draiman barks, “¡GET IT! ¡HUH! ¡HUH!”, @ the beginning, which doesn’t help ). & then @ the beginning o’ the 1st verse there’s a breakdown where, I shit you not, it sounds like there’s electronic beatboxing. Sadly, the rest o’ the song’s music is just generic riffs & drum beats that I have already forgotten, despite hearing this song probably dozens o’ times since my youth.

Having said that, I do find the sound o’ the chorus quite catchy, with its speeding & slowing rhythm.

“Criminal” is a song about the vicious and tormenting baggage a person can carry, and must live with it forever.
How a bad relationship can bring out the worst of you, making you do things you shouldn’t. Yet you can’t free yourself from this person, but rather contemplate ending your own life to be rid of him/her.

Genius

I think some o’ these editors are just making shit up & projecting their own romantic angst. Nowhere in this song’s lyrics is there any mention o’ a bad relationship; if anything, the protagonist seems to blame the vague world on his angst.

Grade: C

11. Divide

( Laughs ). Holy shit, I vaguely remember finding this song kinda catchy since I was young, but only now ’pon closer inspection have I realized how goofy this song is. It’s comparable to their underrated magnum opus, “Droppin’ Plates”, in how Draiman scat-sings in a way that sort o’ sounds like rapping & is trying so hard to sound tough, while sounding corny as hell. Just look @ these lyrics:

don’t wanna be another playa losin’ in this game
i’m trying to impress upon you we’re not the same
my own individuality is so unique
i’m 1 impressive motherfucka, now, ¿wouldn’t you say?

This whole song is Draiman bragging ’bout what a tough individual he is & how he’s not like all the other boys & bragging ’bout how “provocative” he is. I mean, maybe to the tiny minority o’ weird fundies who don’t let their kids listen to any music with a parental advisory sticker or listen to any radio but Radio Disney. I feel like metal fans who have probably heard bands like Cannibal Corpse or Aborted Fetus have much higher standards for “provocation”. Hell, e’en a band as mainstream as Marilyn Manson was considered way mo’ provocative. This song is like a prototypical Ronnie Radke song, except it doesn’t sound like complete ass.

My favorite part is when he philosophically asks, “¿so can you tell me what exactly does “freedom” mean if I’m not free to be as twisted as I wanna be”, with him putting on this particularly impish voice @ that last part. To be fair, he is right: there is a reason the founding fathers o’ the US put the right to be as twisted as one wants to be in the Bill of Rights.

I also love how just before the bridge, Draiman sings, “I hear the sirens, but they’re ne’er gonna take me”, & then just after you hear stock sirens o’ police sirens.

This song apparently goes back e’en further than 1998, back when the band was named Brawl & before Draiman joined &, damn, does this not sound like it’s trying to be We Have Pantera @ Home:

This song’s lyrics are technically better than what we have now: but I think I’ll take my ludicrous cheese o’er Pantera backwash, especially when I could just listen to Pantera proper.

They also remade this song & planned to put it on The Sickness, but didn’t. It’s not surprising that this song was planned for The Sickness, given the cheesy vibes that fit with songs like the aforementioned “Droppin’ Plates” & how edgy it tries to be. All I’ll say ’bout this demo version is that I wish they kept the stock cartoon laugh sound effect after the “twisted as I wanna be” line.

Grade: 🚨

12. Façade

Automatic S grade for putting the cedilla on the “C”.

Being serious, while I kinda like the vocal melody on the chorus, this song is sappy like “Enough”, & I’m not fond o’ the way this song treats its subject matter, discussing the issue o’ domestic abuse by interrogating the victim & asking her why she stays with her abusive partner & hides her misery. Uh, I dunno, ¿maybe ’cause she’s afraid o’ being killed if she doesn’t? It says something when I feel like Papa Roach’s bizarre treatment o’ this issue in whate’er the fuck their “Revenge” song was was better. ¡Fuckin’ Nickelback treated this subject better with their “Never Again”! ( That song is also straight-up funner to listen to ). It’s weird: if anything, you would expect Nickelback to make a weepy, out-o’-touch song like “Façade” & a band named Disturbed to make the song ranting @ what a cowardly bitch abusive men are & cheering on the woman for finally shooting his ass, like “Never Again”. ( Granted, the line “She’s just a wooomaaaan” is out o’ touch, but… I mean, it is Nickelback… ). Hell, a nu-metal ✝-rock band like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus was able to do half that ( without the shooting her abuser part ) in their only hit song ( probably ’cause a band with the name “Red Jumpsuit Apparatus” was doomed to failure ). ¿Wouldn’t it make mo’ sense for a band called Disturbed to make a song that emphasizes the disturbing aspects o’ domestic abuse ( you know, without seeming to be from the point o’ view o’ the abuser, like their song, “The Game” ) & possibly have the woman get her violent revenge? I’m not e’en saying that’s the “moral” way to deal with domestic abuse; but maybe I don’t expect life lessons from a band called Disturbed who wrote the “OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH” “Down with the Sickness” song — but apparently Disturbed felt we needed 2 o’ those songs on this album.

Grade: D

Conclusion

Still a fun album to listen to in the background round Halloween, with a few skips, specially near the end.

Final Grade: B