System plays blistering test-market set
BY JIM DEROGATIS Pop Music Critic Advertisement

Chicago Sun-Times, IL
May 5 2005

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test,” guitarist Daron Malakian
said.

With a vocoder transforming his words into a robotic drone, Malakian’s
announcement opened and closed the ferocious 75-minute set that System
of a Down played Tuesday night at Metro. But a test is exactly what
this rare small-club gig was.

Since its self-titled debut in 1998, the Los Angeles progressive-metal
quartet has risen to the level of an arena headliner while maintaining
its position as one of the strangest and most inventive bands in
hard rock. The Metro show was one of 10 club gigs intended to prime
the promotional pump — or test the market, if you prefer — as the
group gears up for the May 17 release of its third album. (Coldplay
is doing the same thing at Metro on Friday.)

System of a Down hasn’t been prolific on the recorded front.
“Mezmerize/Hypnotize” — which is considered a double album, though
the second disc won’t be issued until the fall — is its first release
since 2001’s “Toxicity.” Yet while its fans are hungry for new music,
and the whole purpose of this club tour is to generate excitement
for it, the group played hardly any fresh material at Metro.

Whether the band thought its fans would be unfamiliar with the new
songs — unlikely, since many have already downloaded the disc —
or it’s paranoid about its music leaking in advance of the release —
a lost cause, since it already has — System of a Down played it safe
and stuck to old favorites such as “Chop Suey,” “Spiders,” “Mr. Jack”
and “Sugar,” which we’ve been hearing in concert for years now.

Of course, “playing it safe” is a relative term for a group as
idiosyncratic as this one. Malakian, vocalist Serj Tankian, bassist
Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan first came together at
an Armenian Christian school a decade ago. They remain dedicated to
informing the world about the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians
in 1915 — the first gig of this club tour was at California’s annual
Sunday’s Souls benefit for that cause last week — and their music
is peppered with radical political philosophizing somewhere to the
left of Noam Chomsky and Rage Against the Machine.

System of a Down is capable of bursts of pile-driver thrash as intense
as any hard-core band and eruptions of shred guitar and double-bass
drumming as punishing as the best death metal bands. But these are
interspersed with beautiful, pseudopsychedelic arena-rock hooks,
passages of traditional Middle Eastern folk music and flourishes of
progressive-rock virtuosity that could be lifted from the weirdest
pages of the Frank Zappa songbook.

Through it all, Tankian conjured a rock ‘n’ roll version of the
turn-of-the-century anarchist standing on a soapbox advocating
revolution as the rhythm section shifted gears faster than the winning
driver at the Indy 500.

Malakian is the group’s secret weapon, however. The least attractive of
an already ugly bunch, the diminutive, balding but still long-haired
guitarist often sounded as if he were playing three parts at once —
delivering rhythm, lead and outer space noise — while simultaneously
adding the sweeter harmonies to the choruses (Tankian can’t actually
sing, but Malakian can) and the occasional “Voice of Satan” deep
bass growl.

Arena rock doesn’t get any more inspired than this. “Mezmerize/
Hypnotize” is certain to keep the band in that forum — the group has
announced a coming tour with fellow new-wave prog-rockers the Mars
Volta — and despite a fiasco with ticket sales that shut many of the
faithful out of the show, the Metro gig was a special intimate treat.