Device: Throwback Album of The Week

Throwback Album of The Week is posted every Wednesday

    Today we are looking at one of my favorite Metal bands of all time, the Industrial Metal side project of Disturbed lead singer David Draiman and Filter guitarist Geno Lenardo. The bad, called Device was formed while Disturbed was on hiatus. The band also featured Dope guitarist Virus and drummer Will Hunt as touring members. Perhaps the most interesting feature of this album is the sheer number of featured artists, with 5 of the 10 tracks having either featured vocalists or instrumentalists. Featured artists include legends of Rock and Metal like Tom Morello as well as modern artists like Lzzy Hale and M. Shadows.

    The first two singles released from this album, Vilify and You Think You Know are the most Disturbed like songs on the album. These two are exactly what you would imagine Disturbed as an Industrial band to sound like, mixing rhythmic Nu Metal guitar work with the heavy synths and drums of Industrial. Draiman’s vocals are absolutely brilliant on these songs, combining the rapid fire style that he is known for with some of the most polished vocal deliveries he has ever mustered. In particular on You Think You Know he has some really powerful vocals on the chorus and bridge.

    The track that is sandwiched between Vilify and You Think You Know, Penance is a darker song that features Draiman singing in a lower register than usual, especially on the verses. Aside from the synths this song is basically a slower version of one of the track off of Asylum. It’s a good song but it’s fairly forgettable, lacking the power of the other Disturbed sound alike tracks and not being as interesting as the later tracks on this album.

    One of the high points on this album is track 4, a cover of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne’s legendary duet Close My Eyes Forever. In the role of Lita Ford we have Halestorm front woman Lzzy Hale who does a phenomenal job of playing off of Draiman. The vocal performance of both Hale and Draiman is absolutely perfect, turning this classic Rock ballad into an Industrial track. The music compliments their delivery as well, keeping it very low key on the verses with just some synths and occasional drums before amping up a little more on the chorus with the guitars and drums coming in.

    The next track is possibly my favorite on the album, featuring the greatest idea for a collaboration ever; David Draiman and Serj Tankien. Out of Line features Draiman and Tankien trading verses of politically charged lyrics condemning rich and powerful people who got where they are by crushing others. Along with the ridiculous combination of vocalists on this track we also have Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler adding some sick bass lines. This combination of modern and old school legends of Hard Rock and Metal is damn near perfect.

    The next track Hunted is actually the first song that was written for Device, initially created as a track Draiman was pitching to be on the Underworld: Awakening soundtrack. While the song wasn’t use for the movie Draiman finished it and put it on this album. The lyrics are all obviously inspired by Underworld: Awakening, being about the alliance of humans and Lycans against the Vampires in the film. The music is very heavy, having thick synth basslines throughout the track with the guitar coming in and out on the choruses.

    Opinion and War Of Lies are really just one long song, as they are almost the exact same topic, while Opinion is aimed at someone who claims to not care about the corruption of our world while War of Lies appears to be directed at the corrupt ones. They’re both good but Opinion has Tom Morello playing guitar on it so it’s instantly much better than War of Lies.

The next track features M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold and Draiman trading off describing the high of being on stage. Draiman has routinely described performance as his drug of choice and him and Shadows capture the dependency on it that hammers the metaphor home.

    The last track is the most emotion filled and powerful track on the album, while also being the most dynamic one. Through It All is also the strongest duet on the album, with Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple and Draiman’s voices complementing each other perfectly when they harmonize. Draiman adopts a low voice to complement Hughes’ operatic high voice. This is an Industrial power ballad, starting off very slow and dark before reaching the climax on the bridge where the guitar comes in powerfully to lead into the crescendo of the final chorus.

    The deluxe edition also features a pretty good cover of the Nine Inch Nails classic Wish and a bonus track called A Piece of Me. Like I said at the start, this is one of my favorite albums of all time and features some of David Draiman’s strongest vocal performances to date. This album is what made me really take not of how good of a singer Draiman is, and because of it made a lifelong fan of Disturbed. While Device is likely not going to release anything other material now that Disturbed is back together, I’m really glad that we got this masterpiece of an album out of them at least.

Album on Google Play

Album on ITunes
Album on Amazon