Review Summary: Some of the band's very best songs make appearance on this album, but the album is uneven and feels incomplete. However, the album shines with an outstanding mid-section.
With
Ten Thousand Fists, Disturbed side-track on repeated occasions with their third studio-album. Looking at the track-list may be a tough adversary in (potentially) picking up this record. Some song-titles shine (
Sons of Plunder,
Land of Confusion), while some reek of generic (
Just Stop,
Pain Redefined). However, songs do speak for themselves and so does this album. The album opens up in perfection with its title track that hits the home-run as the band's very best opening track,
Ten Thousand Fists thrives in getting its audience ready for action and does it perfectly. When listening to it, if you're a movie-buff especially, it will throw you back into the world of spectacular 80s action-flicks. Every band member shines. From the rolling drum-beats, to the echo-enhanced vocals, to the amazing opening leading into the hard-hitting drum-beats and finally into David Draiman's amazing "Survivor!" yell.
After a perfect opening, we leap into two highly mediocre tracks.
Just Stop sounds like Disturbed at their worst. The lyrics are good and Draiman weaves them together perfectly, but everything in the song feels bored and generic. The song talks about "criticizing other people"... Ironically, I'm criticizing this song.
Guarded isn't any better. In fact, it's worse. It wears out its welcome fast for what should have been the shortest track on the record. Moving on into the politically-based track
Deify. While the track itself is a high-point on the CD, the opening 15 seconds are unnecessary and severely damage the remaining 4 minutes. Being obvious is annoying. Feeding your audience the message, as opposed to letting them uncover it, is a big tactical-error. The song itself shines through though with it's nifty-beats, catchy lyrics and the song's power (not as a political piece) about a man feeling betrayed by a leader. Anyhow, four highly entertaining tracks arise next.
Stricken starts out like any basic Disturbed track, but immediately pops upon the word "know". The music video is also highly entertaining. Watching Draiman move around a room, carrying a microphone, is (almost) as entertaining as the summer's greatest blockbusters.
I'm Alive is a song you may immediately underrate (upon catching the track-list), but it stands as the most instrumentally-inventive track on the disc. The lyrics in this track are also very crisp. The main chorus is absolutely masterful, with the words:
"The thing I treasure most in life, cannot be taken away..." dripping smoothly into your mind. The bounciest track on the release is rewarded to
Sons of Plunder which rhymes with purpose. Everything on the track is simplified in comparison to
I'm Alive, which also makes it a breath of fresh-air in listening to. The main chorus is the real highlight. Highly inventive in it's "peeping sons of plunder" lyrics that flow like a river.
Overburdened not only stands as the longest-running track on the release (clocking in at six minutes), but also stands as the best track on the release by far. The opening is eerie and mysterious, in both it's narration and atmospheric sound-effects. After that, we ease into the song itself which is also the slowest song on the disc. The main chorus rings with richness. The lyrics are simple, but complex. The weapons of rock are rocking and Draiman is at his most-vulnerable and his vocal performance makes the song. The themes presented are dark and engaging, basically telling the story of how "hell is still overburdened" with evil. The fact that Draiman states "I must stand and wait in line" makes you immediately feel sympathetic towards him and is the under-looked ingredient to this classic Disturbed track.
The remaining tracks somewhat disappoint.
Forgiven contains some of Draiman's best vocal performances and an outstanding final-third guitar solo from guitarist Dan Donegan. However, the overall production of the track is good at best.
Sacred Lie opens cool, bringing you back to the retro years of video-gaming, but soon rocks back into the land of Disturbed with a blast of drumming. Everything's good with this track, but it's rather depressing when thinking back to a track like
Deify. Still, the song rocks the headset with thunderous fury in the closing act.
Land of Confusion is great, however (like
Guarded) it overstays its welcome. The lyrics presented after the telling of the (first) main chorus didn't need to be there and the song would've ended perfectly if it had been a "cut-off" kind-of track (where it just ends and doesn't continue on). But the song is still very good and the music video's one of the bands very best.
Unfortunately, two highly mediocre tracks follow suit...
Pain Redefined is the better of the pair with each department contributing solidly to the production. But the song is too "on-the-spot" written that it feels amateurish. While
Avarice follows the same formula and takes the cake. It's the shortest song on the record and it really shows, as it's most definitely the weakest of the bunch. The song is on a constant mission to inform you that
"Avarice will kill you in time" and it really does show a sense of lazy song writing. The energy's still with the band, but the lyrics make for an incomplete story and a mediocre closer.
While the pros of this record overshadow the cons. The cons are still there. As a full length album, it's a tough beast that doesn't know when to stop. It still moves, but it moves like a mud-fall with gold nuggets mixed into the... mud. Anyhow, Johnny K was the producer behind this album (he also produced the recent Sevendust album
Cold Day Memory) and his talent really shows. He's helped in putting together some of the best tracks Disturbed has ever produced to the worldwide market. However, it would be really interesting to see how he handles a band with a complete record in mind. Not a singles record; which is exactly what
Ten Thousand Fists, as a record, is.
