New York Times, NY
May 11 2005
Rock Review | System of a Down
Being Brash to Stir Things Up
By JON PARELES
Published: May 11, 2005
System of a Down doesn’t mind taking some cheap shots. The band
played Irving Plaza on Monday night fresh from its appearance on
“Saturday Night Live,” where its leader, Serj Tankian, used a
four-letter word and caused the predictable brouhaha, which gave him
something to brag about onstage.
Forum: Popular Music
Televised profanity was just the thing to stir some interest in the
band’s brief new album, “Mezmerize” (American/Columbia), to be
released on Tuesday, but didn’t get much exposure in the band’s set,
which drew mostly on its 2001 album, “Toxicity” (American/Columbia).
Mr. Tankian’s other stage banter was about sex, drugs and pumping up
a crowd that had already turned the floor into a bruising mosh pit.
The music was made for that: thrashing, stop-start rock that slowed
down and got melodic just long enough to give fans a breather before
the next blast of fast power chords and strobe lights. In concert,
System of a Down’s songs are like throttles governing the speed and
impact of the crowd. But for all its muscle, the band has more on its
mind than brute force.
System of a Down, whose members are Armenian-American, sings about
genocide, war, religion, oppression and freedom. Between the salvos
of speed metal, the songs switched – sometimes instantly – to
minor-mode tunes that hinted at Eastern European origins, and the
nasal bark that Mr. Tankian used for fast passages turned to a
sustained, almost mournful tenor.
For all his sardonic vocal mannerisms, Mr. Tankian rarely jokes; even
“Cigaro,” the hyperbolic sexual boast from “Mezmerize,” turned out to
be about greed and overconsumption: “Burning through the world’s
resources, then we turn and hide.” System of a Down can get away with
slinging a lot of messages as long as the music keeps pummeling.