System Of A Down
“I like to think we’re like a cross between Pink Floyd and Slayer.” – Shavo Odadjian
“Whatever.” – Al
“Al, dude, you should really check out the new System Of A Down album. It’s really good.” – Me
“Whatever.” – Al
Albums Reviewed:
Man, do I love these guys. And less than a year ago, I thought they were shit! How wrong I was. HOW WRONG I WAS! Though System Of A Down gets played to hell on all those “modern rock alternative” radio stations and MTV and whatnot, they have about 1,000 times more talent and creativity than most of the other bands that reside in those same locales COMBINED. These schizophrenic Armenian thrash metal weirdos have pretty much ruled my ass since I finally picked up Toxicity last summer, as they’re somehow able to be really fast and loud, really funny, really smart, and (often) really gorgeous (sounding, that is) all at the same time. If modern “nu-metal” or whatever you want to call it took a few more cues from these guys instead of just trying to sound as much like Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains as possible (or, worse yet, play RAP METAL), maybe, just maybe, 99% of it wouldn’t suck giant fat donkey shit.
OK, now let me introduce you to these four nice Armenians from SoCal. From right to left (Ooooo! I’m switching it up! Gotta watch me! I too quick fo’ you!), we first have, in the suit, drummer John Dolmayan, who you could say is just the drummer, but he does lay down some pretty neat and original sounding parts sometimes (love that fill in “Toxicity!”). Then there’s guitarist, occasional (really cool) singer, and the main musical mind of the band, Daron Malakian. I dig him. He’s a cool dude, man. Sitting down with the shirt with the big numbers on it is bassist Shavo Odadjian, and there’s really nothing to say about him besides “he’s the bassist” and “he has a really long goatee.” On the left there’s the star of the band, and, to me, the most fascinating (at least fascinating-sounding) frontman around today, Serj Tankian. He’s actually a VERY talented singer (as opposed to, ofcourse, Geddy Lee). What makes him so cool is that, despite being a good singer, he usually chooses NOT to sing. He goes from full-on death metal snarl to Icelandic yodel to goofy high-pitched squeak without even blinking. Man, he’s the shit. Plus, they all have long goatees, so that’s cool as well. When they’re playing live, they don’t headbang, they GOATEE-BANG. Sweet. Man, do I love these guys.
And onto the reviews!
System Of A Down (1998)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Spiders”
When I first listened to this album, I actually thought it was better than Toxicity, which may seem odd, since it’s much less “commercial” than the next one. I figured out why this was, though. When I first listened to this, I was comfortable with the sound of System Of A Down, having assimilated Toxicity, and so I wasn’t as completely FUCKED-WITH when I listened to it as I was when I first popped Toxicity into the ol’ CD player. See, this album seemed like less of a mess on first listen than Toxicity seemed like on ITS first listen, because when I first heard Toxicity I had no previous System reference. Upon repeated listens, the superiority of Toxicity becomes apparent, however. Whereas, after three or four listens, that one starts to fall into place and make sense, THIS one, after three or four listens, is still a mess. A manic, fast, weird, mess.
But, like, that’s why it’s COOL. For instance, take the opener, “Suite Pee.” What is that guitar thingy that opens it up? It’s fucking NEAT, whatever it is, and it sounds just as odd the fourth or fifth time you hear it as the first time. And no matter HOW many times you hear it, the line “I want to fuck my way to the garden, ‘CAUSE EVERYONE NEEDS A MOTHER-FUCKER!!!” still perks your ears up and makes you go “wait…WHAAAAAAT?” Lyrics like that are all over the place on this thing, like, from “Soil,” “Don’t you realize evil LIVES IN THE MOTHERUCKING SKIN!” I also used to think that Serj sang “WEEEEEEE WILL FUCK THE HEATHENS!!!” over and over again in “War?” but it turns out, upon researching the matter, he’s saying “fight,” not “fuck.” Goddammit. They don’t like war, those System-ers, or right-wing politics much in general, mind you. I mean, the closing song on here is called “Politically Lying, Unholy, Cowardly Killers” (“P.L.U.C.K.” for short), and features the lovely couplet “Revolution, the only solution, we’ve taken all your shit, now it’s time for restitution!” Yeah, fight the power! Now that Rage turned into that shit band Audioslave (“Cochise” my ASS, that song blows gigantic chunks of lard-puke), we need some really really really REALLY left wing band to get famous. Why can’t they be Armenian? I have no problem with Armenians. Except one Ararat Bagdassarian. He’s sort of a douche.
Lyrics aside, it’s the music that makes the album, ofcourse. I’m listening to it right now for the (I think) fifth time, and I’m STILL not quite sure what’s going on, but I DO like it. To call these guys “nu-metal” and lump them with like Limp Bizkit or whomever is RIDICULOUS, because NO ONE sounds like this band. Ofcourse, Serj could front CREED and they’d sound unique (they sure don’t sound very unique with Scott “Look at me, I’m Jesus!” Stapp out in front). Listen to the shit he does in “Ddevil” or, ofcourse, the “sugaaaaaaahhhhhhh” line in “Sugar.” Man, that’s some neat shit. And it’s balanced out by some neat music. Fast, exciting, multi-part, hectic-as-fuck thrash metal thing-a-ma-bobs that don’t really sound like anything else out there right now. By “multi-part,” I often mean “a chugga-chugga thrash part” and “a slow, sludgy part,” but there ARE exceptions, mind you! “Suggestions” has a neat acoustic intro part. “Mind” is six minutes long (notable because the average SOAD song length is, like TWO), and has all sorts of parts that are neither “chugga chugga” nor “slow, sludgy.” Part of “Peephole” sounds like carnival music! I think there’s a TUBA in there for a few seconds! “Spiders” is a slow, moody thing (not ballad, SOAD are not wont to write a “ballad”) that fucking RULES. Oh, Daron Malakian throws out weird, off-key solo things here and there (like the opening to “Suite Pee” I mentioned) that are just different and interesting. You know what? I just shot my “all songs have 2 parts” theory to fucking hell. Whatever.
I really don’t know what to say about this album without referring to the next one as a comparison. I guess I can say that, while I LOVE the craziness and the weirdness and the hecticness and the interestingness, but give me some ear candy sometimes! I LIKE EAR CANDY! I’m not saying they should give up on artsy thrash metal and write Swedish pop songs with titles like “I’m dirtier than Britney, but not quite as drrrty as Christina,” but in “P.L.U.C.K.,” when Serj and Daron break out some harmonies, GIVE ME MORE OF THIS! You know, SINGING! MELODIES! HARMONIES! I like things like that! There’s not too much of that in this here record. If they could keep the off-kilter-osity but add some more tasty moments of ear candy, that would be A-OK by me. But even if my ears aren’t getting their junk food, there are so many moments of humor (thanks to Serj) and things that are just, for lack of a better word, INTERESTING. A song can be as catchy and ear-delicious and well-written as it wants, but to reach my personal pantheon of greatness, it has to be interesting. And this album has “interesting” in SPADES.
But oh, man, I hope that hand on the cover doesn’t grab me. Aaah! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Toxicity (2001)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Toxicity”
First, I’ll mention what’s worse about this album than the debut: it’s not as weird and hectic, which is what made the debut so COOL. Ofcourse, if you think about it, the fact that this one seems more “ordered” (for System, at least, it’s still odd) is PRECISELY why it’s BETTER than the debut. They did what I wanted and added more ear candy stuff! The BEST thing they did for this one was let Daron sing a bunch, since on the debut he only had that half-assed harmony in “P.L.U.C.K.” Daron has a cool voice, albeit VERY different from Serj’s. He sounds like some heavy-metal soprano leather-wearing ‘80’s guy, like he wants to be Ronnie James Dio or something. But he’s a PERFECT counterpoint to Serj when they’re singing together, like in the “ahhhh ahhhhhh ahhhhhhh” ending part of the closer “Aerials,” the sequel “token slow, moody song” to “Spiders” from the debut. Obviously, this “hey, lets do some harmonies” thing was premeditated, since both this and the other song (“Chop Suey”) that has the best Serj-Daron harmonizing were HUGE radio staples for a while. They both RULE, though. How can you not love the psycho “FAAAATHEEERRR!!!! FAAAAATHEEERRR!!!!” screaming part, then immediately counterbalanced by gorgeous harmonies, pianos, strings, and Armenian plucky-guitar things? That’s COOL!
Oh, and then after the cool gorgeousness, THERE’S A SONG ABOUT A POGO STICK! System Of A Down are so fucking odd. “JUMP pogopogopogopogo BOUNCE pogopopopogopogo!!!!” Man, that’s cool. I love how the band can SEAMLESSLY go back and forth between loud, abrasive thrash metal and all sorts of PURTY things like in “Chop Suey,” as I mentioned, and how in “Needles,” they go from the super-duper DARON-SUNG “I’m just sitting in my room, with a needle in my hand…” part to the Serj-grunted “Pull the tapeworm out of your ass! HEY!!” chorus. And it makes fucking sense! Man, this stuff is the shit. You see what they’re doing by throwing all these nice-sounding things into the song and adding more melody and shit? They’re commercializing without losing their credibility! I could go on and on about the newfound System ear-candy-ness. The intro to “Atwa?’” YES. The end of “Psycho,” all strings and gentle guitar soloing? YES! Especially coming directly intertwined with the “PSYCHO! GROUPIE! COCAINE! CRAZY!” part. How many bands can put two things like that on one album, LET ALONE IN ONE SONG! Man, I love these guys.
It’s not like they’re commercializing their lyrics, though. How about this mouthful from “Prison Song:” “All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences!” Um…yeah? Yeah! For fans of the less verbose, we’ve got “SCIENCE! HAS FAILED! OUR WORLD!” from “Science,” and my personal favorite “Pushing little children! With their fully automatics! They like to PUSH THE WEAK AROUND!!” from “Deer Dance.” Hectic thrashy riffage contrasted with moody moments which are occasionally downright GORGEOUS, with occasional jazzy interludes and acoustic plucking and ethnic COOL-sounding instruments, topped off by Serj and his own personal definition of what a “lyric” might be and how it should be “sung,” or “howled,” or “yelped,” or “grunted.” Man, these guys are the shit.
A few of the songs don’t QUITE do so much for me, however. For instance, “Jet Pilot” is fast and loud and fast like “Bounce,” but without being fucking hilarious because it’s not about a POGO STICK. “X” is mediocre to me for a similar reason. “Shimmy” doesn’t quite do it for me, either. I guess you could say I like the stuff that’s more multi-part and has those neat contrasting ear-candy parts I mentioned, which those songs don’t, really. This can be counteracted if the song is about a pogo stick, ofcourse. The song that comes AFTER “Shimmy,” though, is probably one of my two or three favorite songs of the last few YEARS. How much do I LOVE the title track here. That’s the song that originally got me into the band. I thought they were shit, just some (albeit weirder) nu-metal asswipes, until I heard the title track on the radio and went “DUDE, THAT IS COOLEST 2-SECOND DRUM FILL IN THE WORLD.” Seriously, isn’t it? In the chorus, how the guitars and drums are acting against each other, and after the last “chugga chugga,” John does that little fill. Little, simple, original things that anyone COULD have thought of, but no one else did because the Systemers are smarter than any of those other bands on the radio. “Aerials” was the next single, and that immediately ruled ass, I went back to “Chop Suey,” concluded that also ruled ass, then got the album, finally concluding that IT ruled ass as well.
There’s so much I COULD write about this album, but I don’t want to keep all of you from your super-important lives. If you sit down and listen to this thing, you’ll just get oddly jerked around between a whole bunch of different emotions. You’ll be pumping your fist in the air at the RRRRRROCKING thrashiness, then be going “golly gee, that’s PURTY,” then marveling at how cool those ethnic instruments sound, then laughing your ass off at Serj’s lyrics and vocal mannerisms. More often than not, you’ll do all that IN THE SAME SONG. And, after “Aerials” ends, there’s this three-minute hidden track that sounds like tribal music. It’s all pretty and hypnotic.
Man, I love these guys.
Michael Noto
(notomich@grinnell.edu) writes:
Mostly I agree with the
"Toxicity" review. But you've got "Bounce" all wrong. Well,
it's about a pogo stick, yeah, but the pogo stick is a euphemism for Serj's tenacious D...he's pogoin'
all right, on all the ladies. "She had so many friends!" "All
players with no names, they lined up double quick, but just one pogo
stick..." It's a song about an orgy...sorry to burst your bubble. I'd
actually like it if you didn't post this, since it's more of a
"anal-correction-cause-I-hate
Steal This Album! (2002)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Chic ‘N’ Stu”
When I heard the Systemers were putting out a new album a little while ago, this was JUST as I was heavily getting into them (having recently gotten the debut), and, dude, was I PSYCHED. When I heard it was just gonna be a collection of outtakes and things, that did temper my enthusiasm somewhat, but that enthusiasm was bumped BACK up about thirty seconds after I stuck the album into my computer to play, because the first song, “Chic ‘N’ Stu,” is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Eventually, I figured out that it was about the EVIL PLAGUE ON OUR SOCIETY that is advertising. However, to me it’s about PIZZA, goddammit! “Wanted pizza pie! Pizza pizza pie! Every minute every second BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!!!!” yells Serj. Then there’s a little break for him to go “Pepperoni angry peppers mushrooms olives chives!” followed by Daron singing the same thing! RONNIE JAMES DIO IS SINGING ABOUT PIZZA TOPPINGS! I was already on the floor laughing like thirty seconds into this album. Did I mention how much I love these guys?
There are fifteen other songs on here, and supposedly they span System’s whole recording career, from 1995 through the Toxicity sessions or so. Thus, it’s just FASCINATING. I honestly have no clue what songs are from where, and according to Serj they redid or remixed a bunch of the older stuff, which I can tell, because Daron might sing on this album more than he did on Toxicity. I bet they added some harmonies and things to the older songs to spoof them up and such. Leave it to Rick “Dirty Bearded Man” Rubin! He produced all three albums, and he knows his shit. This might be my favorite System album yet, because it’s just as hectic, odd and nonsensical as the debut, while containing all the fun ear-candy trappings of Toxicity. It doesn’t have highs like “Toxicity” or “Aerials,” but there’s so much going on all OVER the place here.
“Innervision” is the first single, but unlike the singles from Toxicity, I can’t see any obvious reason that they picked it. I mean, it’s a good song ofcourse, but my pick would’ve been the super-duper “Highway Song.” It doesn’t START like a single, ofcourse, but it quickly turns into all sorts of radio-worthy ear-friendly stuff, climaxed by SOOAAAARRRING Serj-Daron harmonies in the chorus. “Do you want me to trrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Directing your niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!” Man, is that stuff the shit. To counteract that, “36” is like forty seconds long and packs about ten times more energy than the average five or six-minute Creed or Puddle of Mudd or whomever song. “Mr. Jack” is the slow and moody sequel to “Spiders” and “Aerials,” or is for most of it, until the end comes with Serj and Daron completely PSYCHOTICALLY yelling “Put your hands up! Get out of the car!!!!!!” over and over again. And the closing “Streamline” has more strings than any previous System song, and they climax in the chorus to sound like just about the most BOMBASTIC thing ever! OH! And there’s an acoustic ballad! And it’s good! “Roulette” is just GORGEOUS. There’s flutes and things! Diversity, my friends.
Oh, but what would a System Of A Down album be without Serj and his goofy lyrics? Probably not something I’d give a 9 to without giving it a second thought. How about, from “A.D.D. (American Dream Denial),” “your remainder is an unjustifiable egotistical power struggle at the expense of the american DREAM! The american DREAM!” For those who like their political rants as simple as possible, they don’t come much more direct than “WAR! Fuck the system! WAR! Fuck the system fuck the system!” from the aptly titled “Fuck The System.” How Serj yells “I got pictures on my mind!” over and over in “Pictures,” it sounds EXACTLY like he’s saying “I got bitches on my mind!” Picturing Serj as a bling-bling rapper is quite possibly the second funniest thing in the world, right after Ronnie James Dio singing about pizza toppings. I can’t recommend this album highly enough. It just rules all kinds of merciless ass all over the place. This band motherfucking RULES. They might be my second-favorite current band around right now, after The Head, which is funny, since the two of them are practically POLAR OPPOSITES. They do have one thing in common, though, and that is huge, gob-smacking amounts of originality and creativity. And that’s more than one thing. Fuckdammit. OK, I’ll let Serj end this review for me with a few lines from “I-E-A-I-A-I-O.”
“Mind illusions acquainted! Bubbles errrrrrrrotica! Plutonium wedding rings! Icicle stretchings! BICYCLE SHOESTRINGS!”
Mezmerize (2005)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “B.Y.O.B.”
Like there was ever any doubt. This one, despite its (I’m assuming) intentionally misspelled title and budget length (35 minutes? What is this, 1962?), is hands down System’s best one yet, and its coming out just a week after Weezer collectively shat the bed with their absolutely pathetic new release will hopefully restore faith in the idea that mainstream guitar rock doesn’t have to be formulaic, boring, and shitty. Just like every System album to date, we don’t get something crazily new and random like Kid A, but we don’t get a retread either. The Armenian Anarchy Brigade has simply taken their pre-existing ideas and tightened them, focused them, and improved them just that much further. It packs more musical ideas into its 35 minutes than Toxicity did into its 40+, and remember Toxicity was a fantastic album as well.
Somehow, this album pulls off the trick of being both more and less commercial than its predecessor at the same time. I love that. But how is this possible, you ask? Well, the biggest change from their previous work is that Daron continues to take on more vocals. Hell, he sings almost as much as Serj on this one! He’s more or less completely by himself on the closer “Lost in Hollywood,” harmonizes with Serj in nearly every song, and gets a few solo vocal moments in most of the tracks as well. The soaring Serj ‘n’ Daron harmonies, which are ALL OVER this album, are the most commercial and ear candy-ish aspect of the band, and that alone is enough to call this album “more commercial” than what the band’s done before. On top of that, however, Serj has softened up his vocals a ton, and the death-metal growl that used to be such a common part of the System sound has been almost completely-excised (not that he doesn’t yell and shout…he just uses his “tuneful” yell most of the time and neglects to sound like the Cookie Monster). So again, from a vocal standpoint, we have more qualities of commerciality than we had before. We also have more lighter moments and soft, non-metallic, melodic breaks than before. Hell, the last two songs aren’t heavy at all! What the fuck? Sellouts!!
Except not. At all. See, just because they harmonize more, growl like the Cookie Monster less, and decide to be melodic and pretty-sounding a higher percentage of the time, that does not mean the songs are commercial. Au contraire! This is actually the most un-commercial batch of songs, in terms of structure and lyrics, that System has penned to date. There is nothing on this album that has 1/10 the commercial qualities of “Aerials” from Toxicity. Hell, I’d be hard-pressed to find something as “radio-friendly” as “Toxicity” or “Chop Suey!” or like half of that damn album. There is so much going on in this record that the average douche will simply not be able to comprehend half of these songs, except maybe to think “that shit’s fucked-up, dude! Cool! Now put on that new Weezer song!” These songs jerk back and forth between jagged, time signature-deficient speed-metal riffing, tongue-twisting vocal breaks, randomly pretty five-second guitar trill lines, gorgeously harmonized bombasti-choruses, mock-dance music, accordion breaks and eighties synth loops so many times in such a short time span that it’s nothing but confusing as hell if you haven’t heard this band before. But all System is doing is taking seven or eight minutes worth of musical ideas, playing them really fast, chopping them up into 15-second snippets, and somehow patching them together into these incredible 3-minute songs that make perfect sense once you listen to them album a few times. I count four completely distinct, separate sections, one or two of which are repeated a number of times, in “Cigaro,” which is over in a tidy 2:11. The single, “B.Y.O.B.,” has got to be the most confusing single of the year, somehow juxtaposing those intense, fiendishly fast prog-metal verses with faux-dance-metal “everybody’s goin’ to the party…” choruses and absolutely random “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!!” and “WHY DON’T PRESIDENTS FIGHT THE WAR!!!!” breaks. How are all those ideas in one song? And how does that song not only work, but become one of the best songs the band’s ever done, if not their best ever? This is smart music. The two frontmen may be borderline-insane militant anarcho-communist Armenians, but they are smart.
Good luck
hearing any of this shit on the radio, though.
You know a band doesn’t give a fuck when they make their poppy, gorgeous, singalong choruses
contain lyrics like “It’s a violent pornography! Choking chicks and sodomy!” and “All you
maggots smoking fags on
No other band today (and certainly no other band today who actually sells lots of records) elicits so many responses of “wow, these guys are fucked-up!” from me. But there’s a method to their madness, and that method is often exhilarating. Put your fucking Weezer bullshit crap album down and pick up this shit. They’re smart, daring, talented, and just fucked-up enough in the head to make them endlessly interesting. And word has it Hypnotize is even better.
Hypnotize (2005)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Hypnotize”
I suppose I should just start
stamp-grading these System albums with 9’s now, right? Whatever. On first listen I was actually a little bit
disappointed with this one, because a) I had been expecting (read: hoping for)
an absolute masterpiece to which I could easily give the third 10 of the
millennium and b) it’s actually much less overtly weird than Mezmerize,
which I think is half the reason that one’s still my favorite System
album. What it is, though, is exactly what the band said it would be: the second
half of a double album that, along with Mezmerize, totally kicks
ass, although I wouldn’t go so far as to give a 10 to the thing were the
two records actually released together (80 minutes of System seems a lot to
take in one sitting, does it not?). And
it even fits like a double album, too!
There’s a little cardboard thingy on Hypnotize
that inserts into the part of Mezmerize that seemed to have an opening in it for no
reason, and the CD designs and artwork end up totally fitting together into one
package. And the last two tracks of the
album recall the first two of Mezmerize in lyrics, title, and musical motifs. It’s cool!
Like
OK, so, like I said, this is the first System album that doesn’t really seem like a progression from its predecessor, instead more like a rehash of previously seen ideas (which, ofcourse, since it was recorded at the same time as the last one, makes sense). And I also can’t sit here and rant for paragraph upon paragraph about how overtly screwy everything is, because it’s really not (well, at least for System it’s not). It’s just, you know, more top-quality System music, to the point where I unfortunately have very little to say about it that’s new. The guys know exactly what they’re doing, exactly what they’re good at, and exactly how to execute it. They’re still writing the same three-minute songs that take neck-beating thrash metal parts and intersperse them with pretty, vaguely ethnic interludes over which Daron croons in his vaguely Geddy Lee-ish whine. There is very little on this record you will not have heard before, but they’re not ripping themselves off or anything. They’re just in a groove! Like how “Attack” starts the album out by rocking viciously, taking a short little interlude, then rocking viciously some more, and “Dreaming” (great vocal overdubs during the metal sections!) and “Kill Rock ‘n Roll” (And I FELT…LIKE…THE BIGGEST…ASSHOLE!!) just continue in the same vein. You could really think of these first three tracks as a holding pattern for the band, just running through their familiar System territory, but still with the quality control at top level, before they finally spring something jawdropping on you, i.e. the title track and first single, which is by far the best “ballad” (relative term concerning these guys) they’ve ever done (and yes, this includes “Aerials,” which is blows out of the water). As far as I’m concerned, this song is the centerpiece of not just this album, but the whole Mezmerize/Hypnotize double-CD extravaganza. It’s a near-perfect piece of work, from the layered intro to the stupendous melodies to the absolutely monumental “ethnic” break to the end, where the band finally lets rip the ROCK. Just a stupendous song all-around. Jaw-dropping. I still like “B.Y.O.B.” a little more, though.
I guess that’s another difference between this and Mezmerize. One the last one, after “B.Y.O.B.” left town, the rest of the record was so incredibly even that it was almost hard to fathom. To pick a favorite track from #3-11 is literally impossible on that thing. On this album, though, not so much. A few songs really don’t hit that hard at all, specifically the duo of “She’s Like Heroin” (an OK song, but what’s with that “ASS!!!!” refrain?) and “Lonely Day,” which actively sucks and is easily the worst song System has ever done. It sounds like WEEZER!!! And not good Weezer, either, I mean Make Believe-Weezer. Just an awful emo ballad, and why Deron saw fit to include it here I’ll never know. My theory is that it could actually be a joke, something I wouldn’t put past these guys, but if it is a joke, it still fails, because it’s not obvious enough. I’m not sure if it’s a joke. It’s not like this is Spinal Tap we’re talking about (by the way, how much would those guys rule on an emo parody album?).
Anyway, aside from “Hypnotize,” most of the real meat can be find about 2/3 of the way through, starting with the fantastically ear-splitting “U-Fig,” which contrasts the loudest moments on the entire album (“COME JOIN THE CAUSE!!!!!! COME JOIN THE CAUSE!!!!!!”) with brief guitar-waterfall breaks that sound like new-age music for five seconds before the song resumes in tearing your face off. Folllowing that, there’s the absolutely epic “Holy Mountains,” which starts off by ripping off the intro to “Aerials” (unfortunately), but eventually turns into one of the most powerful statements in the band’s catalog. Dig those “LIAR!!!! MURDERER!!!!!! SODOMIZER!!!!!!” yells in there. Just ace. Following that, then, is my second favorite song on the album, and by far the weirdest song this band has ever done (apparently, they decided to concentrate all the ridiculousness into one track), “Vicinity of Obscenity.” How about a chorus that goes “Banana banana banana banana terra cotta! Banana terra cotta…TERRA COTTA PIE!!,” huh? How about ripping the shit out of you with their metal guitar riffing and crazy feedback noises (the kind the band has simply not tried before) before randomly turning into a seventies R&B-pop song with “chicka-chicka wah-wah” guitars that sounds like it could have been recorded by The Jackson Five. It makes whatever song it was that broke into an accordion section on Mezmerize seem perfectly sensible by comparison. It is utterly ridiculous, I tell you, but I love it to no end. How many bands can make shit like this make sense? Seriously, how many? Good lord.
So, again, this is nothing more than another 40-minute slab of top-quality System of a Down music. I have nothing else to say about it. I’d like to think I’ve thoroughly described System’s music in the previous reviews, and if I haven’t it’s because they’re so messed up it’s impossible to describe them anyway. Daron still sings a lot. If you hate his voice, maybe stick to Toxicity, though the only song he takes completely solo is “Lonely Day,” which would suck even if David Lee Roth were singing it, so whatever. System of a Down remain very good.
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