The Sound of Silence

From a band that is known for it's metal growling "ooh wah ah ah ah"s that have almost been deified in meme-dom, it's unexpected that they'd be the ones to perform one of the most moving pieces of symphonic rock that you'll find. Lead singer David Draiman's voice is deep and effulgent, which matches the symphony that they use to accompany the rest of the band. His voice soars into the higher registries when it needs to and gets strong and gravelly when the lyrics almost have a bone to pick with the listener.

Around the 4th verse Draiman's voice begins to pick up as the message of the song gets more fervent. The first 3 verses describe a world of "People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening", where the humanity and emotion of the world seems to be wasting away. By the time Draimain sings about the biblical reference to Daniel 5:5 where writing on the wall interpreted by the prophet is meant as a warning, his voice is almost at the same gritty level it gets to it in Disturbed's more aggressive metal. Even though there are warning signs of the isolated state of humanity, the words fall on deaf ears when people are not interested in listening.

The Sound of Silence is a beautiful song by Simon & Garfunkel, but Disturbed takes their powerful message and dials it up another couple of notches into something even bigger.