Riff Police! Pull Over! #14: Disturbed Vs Slayer!

Would you believe it if someone said Disturbed had ripped off a Slayer riff in one of their songs? Would you believe it if they said Slayer ripped off a Disturbed riff? Which one of those seems the least likely statement? It’s hard to imagine either but this series is called “Riff Police” so one of those two must be the case? Right? Well it’s the later. There aren’t many people who survived the Nu-Metal uprising the first time around who won’t know “Down With The Sickness” by Disturbed. It’s hilarious and brilliant usage in Jet Li’s “The One” just added to the momentum that brought the Chicago Illinois Metal quartet to the fore.

Fast forward just a couple of years to 2001 and from one of the big four’s album “God Hates Us All” comes “Threshold”, a song which if you slow it down you’ll notice shares the same riffage. That’s right. Slayer ripped off Disturbed. Don’t believe us? Play back the tunes side by side, speed up Disturbed and slow down Slayer and you’ve got the thin veil of guitar tone differential but that’s not much. This is the Riff Police. Pull Over.