Okay. I’ll admit right up front here that I’m not much of a heavy music kind of guy. However, I’m a huge fan of Disturbed, specifically their lead singer David Draiman, who I think has an utterly fantastic voice and I don’t mind Chevelle, so when a play copy of Music As A Weapon II, a live CD featuring performances by Disturbed and Chevelle, as well as fellow ‘nu-metallers’ Taproot and Unloco, I nabbed the CD, eager to get an idea as to what exactly Disturbed live sounds like, as well as possibly getting into a couple of bands I’ve never really bothered listening to before (Taproot & Unloco).
Culled from the tour that shares the same name as the disc, the CD clocks in at 14 tracks at just a little under an hour. Instead of having all the artists performances lumped together, the tracks from the various bands are mixed throughout the record, letting you sample the bands as you work your way through the CD, instead of having to sit through one group, then the second group, then the third, then the fourth. While this might be annoying with another live CD with a more diverse lineup, the groups on this record sound enough alike that this is a non-issue.
The disc itself isn’t really all that remarkable, as live performances go. Instead of trying to provide their fans with different takes on their existing songs. ‘Stupify’ sounds almost exactly like it’s studio counterpart. Ditto for ‘Prayer’. The acoustic re-working of ‘Darkness’ doesn’t really do much of anything for me, while their cover of ‘Fade To Black’ by Metallica is okay at best. Draiman’s got a good voice that overrides Hetfield’s stanglehold on HIS song, but the song itself, being touted as an ‘acoustic’ track is not really worth picking up and checking out. The previously unreleased track, ‘Dehumanized’, is worth listening to, however, and is one of the ‘bonuses’ on the disc that’s worth checking out.
As for Taproot, the less said about them, the better. Nothing really jumped out at me and made me want to listen to the tracks on the album. By the time I had made my way to the third (and last) track from them on the album, I found myself skipping it in favor of something else. Unloco, however, while still sounding like 99% of all other nu-metal groups out there, seemed to have a bit of a bounce in their songs and their vocalist, Joey Duenas, has quite a bit of venom in him, which makes the Taproot tracks sound like the only actual live tracks that are on this LIVE album.
Which brings me to a gripe that I have with this album. Everything is so polished, so perfect sounding that it more or less sounds like a studio album with whacked out acoustics. Crowd noises are non-existant, so if you dislike hearing people cheer when the lead singer goes ‘lemme hear you make some FUCKING NOISE’, then this is the record for you. Seriously, would it have killed them to leave some crowd noises in there?
Chevelle, to paraphrase Scott Keith, are Perfectly Acceptable Nu-Metal, and again didn’t really do anything for me one way or the other. They certainly aren’t bad at what they do, but then again, that’s not necessarily a GOOD thing, considering that this genre of music is going to be ‘uncool’ on playgrounds across the continent by the end of the year.
My advice would be to stick to the studio albums from Disturbed & Unloco and bypass anything from Chevelle or Taproot. This performance is also available in DVD, for those interested, so if you also want to see Disturbed cover Metallica as well as hear them, then check it out. Beyond that, there’s no real reason to own this album.
