The Sickness is the debut album from Chicago nu metal band, Disturbed. I grew up playing “Down with the Sickness,” on Rockband 2 back when I was a kid, as I liked the dark and edgy sound of it, but other than that I really didn’t know much about the band’s music until I listened to this album. It’s 25 years old as of this year as it was released on March 7th, 2000. It’s by far the band’s most successful album, but 25 years later is it any good? Here are my thoughts.
I will preface this review by saying that the genre of nu metal for the most part has aged like milk, and Disturbed is really no different The rapping and goofy yelling from lead singer David Draiman is really hard to take seriously on most of this record. As for the production side of things, the wobbly synthesizers on “The Game,” sound so cheap and shitty, like there’s way better synth effects in GarageBand, which isn’t me insulting GarageBand, but they recorded this in a studio, they took time to make this album, and it sounds genuinely awful. The album definitely started somewhat decent with “Voices,” but as soon as that track ended it just started going downhill. I will say the strong point of this record is easily the guitar riffs from Dan Donegan as they’re distorted and thrashy, and I’m a sucker for heavy metal guitars. Following that, we have “Stupify,” which again has solid guitar riffs but the electronic production sounds horrible. I can respect the lyrics which are anti-racism, but the vocal delivery from Draiman is so silly that it pretty much undermines the primary message of the track. Following that, we have the band’s most famous song, “Down with the Sickness,” which easily has some of the best guitar work on the entire record, and Draiman’s singing actually sounds somewhat decent, but the track is completely fucked over by the domestic abuse bridge, it’s extremely hard to listen to, and it just doesn’t sound good musically or lyrically, so it severely brings down the track as a result. I can respect the group for trying to make a dark metaphor about American society, but the whole thing just feels like practically a self-parody and like it’s making a joke about child abuse. After that, the rest of the album just continues to go downhill from there. “Violence Fetish,” is pretty much just a song version of the film franchise, The Purge, while “Fear,” is another track about violence and being feared by others. The singing on “Numb,” sounds extremely off-key and unlistenable, while “Want,” sounds identical to at least three other tracks on this record. There really isn’t that much to say about “Conflict,” but the cover of Tear For Fears’ “Shout,” titled, “Shout 2000,” is genuinely horrible and should’ve never made it outside the studio.
To put it in sophomoric words, The Sickness is one of the shittiest sounding albums of the 2000s, and I’d go even further to add it’s one of the worst albums of the 21st century. Other than Linkin Park, the majority of nu metal sounds so tacky and cheap, and many metal purists don’t even consider it real metal for a good reason. I’m being generous in saying that “Down with the Sickness,” and “Stupify,” are stronger tracks, as they’re just slightly less terrible than the rest of this album. If you want to listen to good 2000s metal, please listen to System of a Down, Slipknot, Linkin Park, and Avenged Sevenfold, just to name a few. Avoid this record at all costs it’s a complete waste of time. The production sounds lazy, the lyrical content is shallow and the vocals are laughable, it’s really just one of the worst things you can subject your ears to. The reason this album isn’t a 0/10 is because “Down with the Sickness,” has some redeeming factors to it.
Overall Score: 1/10
Favorite Tracks: “Down with the Sickness,” some of “Stupify,” and “Voices,”
Least Favorite Tracks: “The Game,” “Shout 2000,” “Numb,” “Want,” “Conflict,” “Fear,” “Violence Fetish,” “Droppin’ Plates,” “Meaning of Life,”
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEx8XyOvmnM
Genres: Nu Metal/Rap Metal/Hard Rock