One of the coolest parts of the college experience for me is the ability to join different programs in different areas of interest, including writing and music.
One cool option I did not have in high school is being able to run my own radio station on Keene State College’s radio network, WKNH.
Anybody who has listened to my show “Metal Power Hour” on Friday 8:00-9:00 p.m., will notice that every week my show has been on there is always one song by Disturbed.
I don’t just plan any kind of song; however, every week I play one song off of Disturbed’s most recent album, entitled “The Lost Children.”
This album is a special one, because it contains many unreleased songs from as early as 1999. In an interview with the band, they said they came up with the album name because the songs were “[their] children – We can’t pick a favorite.”
The reason the songs were not released before was because the songs are all “B-Track” songs.
They are the songs that didn’t quite make it onto the full release of albums, even though they were recorded at the same time as songs which did make the cut.
These tracks were never made fully on an album, but were floating around the collections of serious collectors, save for the song “Mine” which was just made available on this album.
One reason I love this album so much is due to the song “3.” The song is based on the story of The West Memphis Three.
In a nutshell, as explained by Revolver magazine, three teenagers were accused and convicted of a crime (strongly in part due to the collective love of metal and non-sharing of the traditional religious beliefs of the area), the murder of three young children, that there was strong evidence against them committing.
One of the teens was legally declared mentally impaired, and there were a lot of shadowy proceedings around how a verdict was reached.
The song “3” off of the album is one of many metal songs produced to spread the word and rally support for the WM3.
Disturbed is a band that often discusses hard issues that many artists of other genres won’t acknowledge and has always appealed to me in that sense.
This is a huge part of why this album is so important and excellent to me.
The amount of time and energy put into producing one song alone is huge.
To take the time to do something for other people, who may not have a voice otherwise, shows the real character behind these artists. This isn’t even to comment on the sound of the album.
The songs have more of a feel of the older Disturbed albums, which was an extremely welcome discovery.
The album evokes the memories of the first time I heard any songs from Disturbed, and for many fans as well as myself, this feeling is excellent.
There is a huge variety of their styles on this album which always makes any album stronger. If you would like to hear some of the album, I highly recommend giving it a listen, which you can do by tuning into my radio show every Friday.
Tune in, and hear for yourself just what makes “The Lost Children” some of Disturbed’s best work yet.
Dave Padrazo can be contacted at
dpadrazo@keene-equinox.com