The new Disturbed album, Believe (Reprise), is one of the most eagerly awaited heavy-metal releases of the year. So it's important for the band to make a good first impression -- a feat they accomplish handily, with one of the most striking rock album covers of their generation. An intricate steel emblem sits against a deep red background, with the group's name running sideways up the edge of the case and the album title printed in black across the bottom. The emblem is made up of four interlocking religious symbols. A circle with a cross carved into it is the foundation, with a Star of David and a pentagram superimposed on top. A Muslim crescent lies on its side at the top of the figure, its tips sticking out of the circle like horns. The whole thing looks like an unholy marriage between the nine-pointed star from the face of the last Slipknot CD and the teddy-bear devil from the booklet of the last Radiohead disc -- only cooler than both of those put together, in a way metalheads of all ages can appreciate.

What does it mean to call your album Believe when you've got an evil-looking emblem made up of four clashing religious symbols on the cover of your album? That's a question plenty of rock fans will spend the rest of the year pondering. Disturbed's magnetic frontman, David Draiman, doesn't have an answer, but he does offer a glimpse inside the band's head in their official biography on disturbed1.com. "People need to seek out that which they are able to believe in. Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in the future of humanity? In God? In the death of God?" He gets even more grandiose at the end of the short inspirational proverb that appears in the CD booklet. "When twilight draws near, when you are pushed to the very limits of your soul, when it seems that all you have left are the dead remnants of the fabric of your life -- believe."

The disc's first single, "Prayer," turns the band's positive outlook into grinding funk metal that's majestic enough to justify their lofty metaphysical pretensions. Like all good metal frontmen, Draiman is overwhelmed by the cruelty of the world, and he spits out the song's first line accordingly: "Another dream that will never come true/Just to complement your sorrow." He finds solace in melody before long, framing the chorus with a bold proclamation: "Let me enlighten you/This is the way I pray." Then the groove settles down, the guitars turn spectral, and Draiman offers up a troubled prayer in harmony: "Living just isn't hard enough/Burn me alive inside/Living my life's not hard enough/Take everything away." Suddenly, the band's message makes sense: life is hell, but look inside yourself and you can make it through.

When Disturbed first broke into the metal mainstream, two years ago, their angst overshadowed any uplifting sentiments they had to offer. After all, their first album was called The Sickness (Reprise), and their first single, "Stupify" [sic], conjured up the chest-pounding ugliness of Metallica and Godsmack. Draiman opened the disc's anthemic second single, "Voices," with a violent croak ("Soo-ah!") that signaled his arrival as metal's most flamboyant new frontman. He went even farther on the demented party jam "Down with the Sickness," which featured an opening exorcism ("Ooh wah-ah-ah-ah! Uh! Uh!") of starmaking proportions. It took all three songs and two straight OzzFests for the band to reach critical mass, but they ended up selling more than two million albums.

Like most of today's mainstream metal stars, Disturbed have roots that are anything but glamorous. Guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist Fuzz, and drummer Mike Wengren formed the band in the mid '90s in Chicago, where they honed their chops on the suburban rock circuit. Draiman, the rebellious product of a strict Jewish upbringing who was kicked out of five different boarding schools as a kid, joined the group early on. At that point, they spent a significant amount of their time playing covers, evidence of which can be found in the silly version of Tears for Fears' "Shout" on The Sickness. They rarely got gigs in the city, but that didn't stop them from getting signed on the basis of their suburban following and a demo they made with local producer Johnny K.

Now they're playing with the big boys: even as I speak, cover bands at trashy metal bars across the country are probably learning songs from Believe. Disturbed headlined 2002 Locobazooka! in Worcester last weekend, and they're opening the latest Korn tour, which hits the Tweeter Center in Mansfield on October 12. They're big enough to get banned by MTV, which is refusing to broadcast the apocalyptic video for "Prayer" because it feels the thing is too reminiscent of September 11. And they're loved by fans and critics alike for being a bad-ass hard-rock band with a healthy respect for tradition, no love for commercial gimmicks, and -- most important -- something to say.

Like The Sickness, Believe was made away from the glare of the music industry, at producer Johnny K's Groovemaster Studios in Chicago. It's a more focused effort than its predecessor, which occasionally strayed from the rock cause to include industrial beats, rap-metal overtones, and the aforementioned Tears for Fears cover. Draiman has said singing positive songs is his way of dealing with the trauma of September 11 and the recent death of his grandfather, and the band complement his new-found empathy with an extra dose of melody.

And despite his prototypical new-metal looks -- he's got a shaved head and two steel fangs hanging out of his pierced chin -- Draiman insists Disturbed are standing up for the old school. "We have a responsibility," he says in the band's bio. "We have to remain faithful to what true metal was established to be in the name of Black Sabbath and a hundred other great bands: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Queensrÿche, Metallica, Pantera, Soundgarden. All of those bands had songs that spoke about grand things."

There's more than a little Queensrÿche in "Liberate," the album's most convincing synthesis of trad-metal glory and contemporary punch. It's also the song where Draiman most explicitly addresses organized religion, expressing more than enough ambivalence to do the album cover proud: "Waiting for your modern messiah/To take away all the hatred/That darkens the light in your eye/Still awaiting, I." His soaring vocals stop short of operatic, but it's hard not to hear Queensrÿche singer Geoff Tate in both his phrasing and his sense of melodrama. The song's opening groove is the feistiest on the album, and Draiman's choppy vocal attack fuels a combative verse: "Liberate your mind/You motherfucker, you're so narrow-minded/So narrow-minded." Throw in an Eastern-sounding interlude and the whole thing's as smart as it is epic.

Draiman gets even more spiritual on the title track, a slow-burning anthem built on a sterling guitar hook from Donegan. The chorus is righteous and bleak at the same time: "All your belief cannot absolve your sin." But the inspirational vibe that dominates the album returns on "Remember," which also pays worthy tribute to one of the band's biggest influences, Tool, with its odd rhythms and countermelodies. The guitars turn pop as the chorus approaches, and Draiman looks inside himself for strength: "Holding on to let them know/What's given to me/To hide behind the mask this time/And try to believe." The shortcomings of organized religion have been feeding the frustrations of metalheads for years, but rarely has believing in yourself sounded this cathartic.

Draiman examines the flip side of belief on "Breathe," an itchy prog-metal experiment with a fist-pumping chorus that recalls Priest at their glammiest. There's a fine line between belief and self-righteousness, the song warns, and you'll end up alone if you cross it. Draiman chooses confrontation over introspection on "Intoxication," one of the few songs here that features his trademark vocal outbursts (it's "Huh! Huh!" this time). The band kick up their heaviest Pantera groove, and the anger they let out is a welcome release from all the brooding. They keep it in overdrive for the epic "Rise," locking into a fierce gallop as Draiman cries out for someone to remove the fear from his eyes. He could be praying again, but it seems just as likely that he's looking to his fans for deliverance -- like many a proud metal warrior before him.

Believe ends on an appropriately somber note, with two bittersweet ballads that complete Disturbed's transformation from rock's looniest agitators to pop-minded art-metalers on a spiritual quest. "Devour" is the closest thing to a love song here, but it also boasts the saddest melody on the album. Draiman's voice is filled with both yearning and regret on the memorable chorus, which reads like a desperate ode to romantic co-dependence from the Nine Inch Nails playbook: "I will devour you/Take all the pain away."

The disc's closing track, "Darkness," looks mortality in the eye with a morbid acoustic guitar that sounds like a suicidal version of the Saigon Kick hair-metal standard "Love Is on the Way." "Dare to believe/For one last time," sings Draiman in a softer croon than anyone knew he had. "And then I'll let the/Darkness cover me/Deny everything," he continues, managing to find beauty amid the sadness. Over the course of the album, he's done an admirable job of finding a reason to believe in the face of disillusionment. But like any self-respecting metalhead, he knows that everything fades to black in the end.

Disturbed open for Korn on Saturday October 12 at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield. Call (617) 228-6000.

Issue Date: September 27 - October 3, 2002