The sixth studio long player from the Windy City-based outfit,
Immortalized
finds
Disturbed
bolting down the house they finished building on 2010's
Asylum
, offering up a 13-track slab of vintage mid- to late-2000s heavy rock piled high with bottom-heavy riffs, piston-like percussion, and big modern rock radio-ready choruses.
has more than its share of vintage
goodies, like the soaring first single "The Vengeful One," the stadium-ready "Who Taught You How to Hate," and the nervy title track. The band's dramatic reading of
Simon & Garfunkel
's "Sound of Silence," which effectively utilizes the pared-down piano-and-vocal treatment that helped
Gary Jules
resurrect
Tears for Fears
' "Mad World," and the anthemic and refreshingly upbeat mid-album gem "The Light," impress with their unabashed theatricality and strong vocal turns from
David Draiman
. And as per usual,
Don Donegan
's stellar guitar work is the glue that keeps the whole affair from disappearing into the populist ether. ~ James Christopher Monger