Maybe a little perturbed, bothered, inconvenienced…
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[5.00]
Thomas Inskeep: Nita Strauss is a certified shredder; her current day job is as Alice Cooper’s touring guitarist. And this rock radio #1 record is solid enough that even stupid-ass David Draiman, aka the lead singer of notably awful rockers Disturbed (they’re still around!), can’t ruin it. In fact, to be honest his voice is kind of a perfect foil for Strauss’s hot lixxx. This is dumb, and also incredibly entertaining.
[7]
Nortey Dowuona: The power in David Drainman’s voice carries above the heavy, blunted drums and low slung bass, the shimmering and howling guitar in Nita Strauss’s hands talking back in an impressed growl, as if liking that she’s found a partner who isn’t afraid of its sharp, piercing fangs, and instead has some of his own. So much, that when it begins snarling and snapping at David, David howls right back, battling with each of his sharpened canine against Nita’s fangs, until, sated, Nita pulls back, allowing David to float amongst the soft, playdoh synths, until she slams the guitar fangs back down on him, which he battles all the way down and slip rights from underneath its jaws, dusting himself off and walking away, his check between his left incisor and canine.
[7]
Alfred Soto: How power chords and stentorian, arena-level miserabilism translate outside thriving online communities these days is a phenomenon I hope readers or my colleagues explain. Me, I’ll say Nita Strauss proves adept at guitar cliches and David Draiman can wail as histrionically as anyone.
[5]
Ian Mathers: The Singles Jukebox has long been a place equally for erudition and glibness, deep personal reflection and shooting from the hip, responses to songs that trigger intense emotions and one we struggle to say much about. But never in my many years contributing here have I been so viscerally tempted to just write “yo, this sucks” than when hearing this combination of a pretty good metal guitarist and the ever-increasingly tiresome dude from Disturbed yowling about “a new terrorism taking over our lives.” I keep thinking I should expand on that, but the entire time I’m gritting my teeth through this damn thing trying to figure out something else to say my whole brain is just… “yo, this sucks”.
[2]
Oliver Maier: I mean I can think of worse things than the guy from Disturbed doing a flamboyant power metal song. I can think of better things too, but I can probably think of more worse things overall. Which makes this a
[6]
Edward Okulicz: I don’t have a huge knowledge of Disturbed outside That Hit Single and a few other ones, but while heavy metal is always performative and often over the top, there’s something overly theatrical about his snarl on this. He’s singing about being dead inside as if he’s desperately trying to suffocate a cheesy grin. He’s killing Strauss’s mood and crunch until it too seems silly.
[4]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The eternal problem of the solo rock guitarist (going back at least to Jeff Beck) is that there’s not a huge conventional audience for songs consisting entirely of sick riffs. The traditional remedy is to bring in some singing lunkhead without much of a personality in order to smuggle the guitars in, but in this case David Draiman is too much of an overwhelming presence for it to work. It sounds like he’s singing over the song rather than being a natural part of it — for the few seconds we get of just Strauss’ playing, you can get a sense of what this could have been without the Disturbed guy.
[4]