martindavey87 Disturbed's second album, released in 2002, continues where 'The Sickness' left off. With groove-laden detuned guitar riffs and David Draiman's signature vocal style, the band show a maturity that will enable them to survive the dying nu metal scene.

The most notable difference between 'Believe' and the bands 2000 debut is that there's more emphasis on hooks, with the songs being catchier and with more focus on strong, memorable choruses. Unfortunately, like before, there's still a good amount of filler material here too. The good songs are really good, but the rest are entirely forgettable.

Dan Donegan's guitar work is great, however. We know he can shred by his work on later albums, but here he's restraining himself immensely. Whether for the good of the song, or simply because the nu metal fad didn't allow for guitar solos, either way, his riffs are heavy, yet melodic, and each flows into the next effortlessly.

While 'Believe' is still an average album at best, there are some notable tracks. 'Prayer', 'Remember', 'Liberate', 'Bound' and 'Rise' are all fantastic songs that make this worth at least one or two listens, and while the band are still pretty much a nu metal act here, there's potential to outlive the subgenre while appealing to both metal fans and radio alike.

UMUR "Believe" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, Chicago, Illinois based alternative metal act Disturbed. The album was released through Reprise Records in September 2002. "Believe" debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and the album turned out to be a major commercial success for the band selling close to 300.000 copies in the first week after it was released. By January 2003 the album had sold over 1 million copies.

...listening to the album it´s pretty obvious why "Believe" had such a major commercial potential. While it´s certainly heavy at places with chuggin` downtuned riffing and relatively aggressive vocals, the tracks are very easy to get into and appreciate. They are all build on a classic vers/chorus formula and seldom deviate from that form. Most are energetic (the closing ballad "Darkness" is the exception) and groove based but all without exception feature very melodic clean sung sing-along choruses. That´s exactly how you create a major commercial success and make sure that your songs are played on the radio and your videos are played on TV. Sing-along choruses is the key element to commercial success and "Believe" features plenty of those. Lead vocalist David Draiman has a voice that reminds me slightly of a raw sounding Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots and some of the melody lines also resemble melody lines written by that act, but Draiman and Disturbed are generally much heavier and more "metal" than the Californians.

The tracks are generally very vocal driven and the riffs and rythms often become backing to the vocals instead of delivering memorable riffs and sections. This too is probably also a great part of their mainstream commercial success and I´d say their formula is closer to commercial hard rock than "regular" metal. Personally I find the tracks way too formulaic to keep me entertained for more than a couple of spins, but I fully understand why the band appeal to so many. "Believe" is certainly both well written, well played and well produced, so all ingredients are here for a succesful release. I´d say a 3.5 star (70%) rating is fair.