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The moribund hard rock world desperately needs a new hero, and Disturbed might just be it. The Sickness, its double-platinum-plus 2000 debut album, made the perfect kind of impact, a slow climb built on heavy touring and a connection made via grass roots rather than hype. The Chicago quartet was a band the headbangers felt they could, well, Believe in.
Their latest, Believe, is both a consolidation and an evolution for Disturbed. Working with the same team -- producer Johnny Z. and mixer Andy Wallace -- the effort comes with the same muscular, confrontational power that made The Sickness so infectiously exciting, but twists things just enough to make the second time sounds as fresh as the first.

The industrial touches of the debut are largely gone, and so are frontman David Draiman's trademark, staccato safari "noises" that became a kind of distracting Disturbed hook. In their place is a more straightforward, sinewy, and dynamic attack, a leaden wall of sound that still leaves room for plenty of punch and groove from the brutal pummel of "Awaken," "Remember" and "Mistress" to the full-speed tear of "Liberate" and "Intoxication" and the shifty rhythmic crunch of "Devour." The album-closing "Darkness" is a disarmingly pretty and gentle piece employing acoustic guitar, piano and strings.

Draiman's message hasn't change much: There are frequent exhortations to think for one's self and not be afraid to ask questions. "How long will we be waiting for your modern messiah/To take away all the hatred that darkens the light in your eye?" he asks in "Liberate." "Prayer," the album's first single, is a response to the reactionary rhetoric of the religious right following the September 11 attacks, while the title track also casts a skeptical eye on religious faith, declaring that "All you believe cannot absolve yourself."

Provocative both musically and lyrically, Believe is a sophomore triumph that could well turn The Sickness into a full-scale epidemic.

Gary Graff
CDNOW Contributing Writer

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