Review Summary: "Come on, can't you just leave it alone? It doesn't have any soul. Just find a thing of your own and stop pretending to know."
David Draiman really came out swinging promoting this album. He did an interview saying “We’ve always used that as a goal — the record that literally every single track on it could be a hit. A record that breaks doors down, that opens up new opportunities to us, that helps you achieve true immortality as an artist.” even going on to say that this will be Disturbed's "Black Album". That's some high praise and lofty expectations. Suffice to say, it falls far short of their self-imposed yard stick. Evolution is certainly a departure from their normal output but being different and being enjoyable to listen to are two entirely different things.
The biggest change in Evolution is the introduction of ballads. For better or worse about half of Evolution is composed of acoustic ballads. Naively I'd like to think that Disturbed really wanted to push the envelope and try something new, but realistically they looked at the checks they were cashing from 'Sound of Silence' and wanted to milk that cash cow. Now, Disturbed writing acoustic ballads isn't exactly a bad thing in and of itself. Other bands release acoustic albums to great success and ballads give Draiman's vocals a chance to really shine. The issue is that there's no rhyme or reason when they appear on the album. They're just haphazardly mixed in with industrial hard rock songs. The album feels less like a cohesive unit and more like poorly thought out Spotify playlist. As for the ballads themselves the quality varies from catchy and decent a la 'Watch You Burn', to unpleasant for all parties involved ('Already Gone'). One thing I really can't shake whenever I listen to any of these tracks is that none of them feel genuine. If you go back to their 2002 Believe and listen to the track 'Remember', at least to me, it sounds like Draiman is really sharing with us his anguish and pain over the loss of his grandfather. These new ballads on Evolution are clearly engineered to tug at heart strings but I just don't get that same impression that I did with Remember. It feels fake.
If ballads aren't your thing, well it doesn't get better as the hard rock portion of the Evolution playlist is pretty forgettable. 'Are You Ready' and 'The Best Ones Lie' are probably the best of this crop. At best they feel like B-Sides off of another Disturbed/Device album (Are You Ready having been originally written in 2004 pretty much is a B-Side). The others sound like after thoughts entirely. 'No More is a song about rising up against war mongers. The message is "No More", "We will no longer be their whore". The topic, while done to death, should be one you would expect to elicit some passion. However, Draiman's delivery of these lyrics resembles less of a leader calling for revolution and more of an instructor going over an employee handbook. 'Stronger on Your Own' is even worse as Draiman sounds just plain bored (at one point I had to stop listening as I was convinced I heard him yawning on this track). You can tell a majority of the work went into the acoustic portion, trying to get more of that 'Sound of Silence' cash.
I haven't really talked about the rest of the band as there really isn't much to talk about here. Hell, if it weren't for the 3:00 mark of 'Saviour of Nothing' I would've thought that Mike Wengren was kicked out and replaced by a drum machine. Dan Donegan won't be confused with Kirk Hammett anytime soon but he's definitely capable of more than he's been asked of in Evolution. I've listened to this over 5 times and I can't remember one good riff, solo or lick. There just isn't anything that stands out on this front.
Overall, Evolution is a forgettable experience. It's not offensive like an All That Remains album released in the last 5 years, where you have to really strain and put a lot of effort into getting through the entire album. But it's not really worth listening to. It's what happens when you see some recent success and go all in in hopes of cashing out and timing the market. If you're an old fan of the band like I am listening to this feels like doing your taxes and finding out you're not getting a refund; tedious to get through only to come out disappointed.
