New Straits Times (Malaysia)
June 19, 2005, Sunday

Hairy, scary and violent..ZO: A-ALL

by Shanon Teoh; Jeremy Mahadevan

MEZMERIZE
System Of A Down
(Columbia/Sony)
Review by Shannon Teoh

SINCE time immemorial, man has been a creature whose every primal
instinct is to rule, conquer and beat up anyone who refuses to bow
down
to its power. Stanley Kubrick himself said so, in his epochal film,
2001:
A Space Odyssey.

Never mind that I never got to the space bits I keep hearing about.
The
first half containing those hairy hominids in their tribal wars still
rings true today. Hairy men need to rock and roll!

It’s hard to get more manly than the likes of System of a Down
(SOAD).
It’s hairy, scary and violent as hell. It’s not just riff after riff
of
inane thrashmetal, the assuredness with which it constructs such
in-your-face loud-soft-loud-barking dynamics is sheer all-conquering
power of Dodge Viper-like proportions.

Interesting then that it wears its anti-American Imperialism on its
sleeves. But could you blame these bug-eyed-on-testosterone (real men
don’t take drugs you see, unlike, ahem, some bands) Armenians whose
homeland was ravaged by civil war? And like real manly men who beat
their
chests and do the Maori Hakka, these warriors are heroes who sound
the
gong of a new era.

A new era that began in the late 1990s when SOAD’s eponymous debut
slayed the arena of nu-metal gladiators with one fell swoop. The
dominion
of all that is phallic about the 21st century continued with
Toxicity.

Fuelled by irresistible pheromones induced by the fire breathing
pipes
of Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian’s songcraft, singles such as the
aptly
titled Chop Suey – which describes the miscellany that is signature
to
their bewildering mix – caught on in mainstream consciousness,
signalling
its intent on clubbing even more cavemen and women.

Mezmerize builds on this intensity and even so, it is but part one of
a
new agenda. The autumnal ascension of Hypnotize later this year from
the
band’s melting pot of grinding guitar chops and 1980s synth-rock
looks
set to fully cement SOAD’s masculine butts to the throne of
alternative-hardcore.

Wearing sociopolitical commentary (read: dissatisfaction) like badges
on its breastplates and marching out with pyromancy and irrepressible
choruses, Mezmerize does exactly that, culminating in the closing
track
Lost in Hollywood.

Telling us that we “should’ve never trusted Hollywood” with its nest
of
“maggots smoking fags on Sunset Boulevard” who tell us lies about
being
“the best they’ve ever seen”, it is hardly the cleverest stuff on the
planet but it makes for immediate, straightforward momentum in
today’s
political climate that takes longer than grannies sewing Christmas
stockings to resolve anything.

While the album does suffer from a bit too much of Malakian’s
contribution on the mic, it hardly distracts from an album armed with
gems like Violent Pornography and This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m
On
This Song – both surely candidates for song titles of the year.

And titles like song of the year, employee of the month, Time Man of
the Year (ironically, most recently won by Dubya Bush himself) and
“rockingest” band of all time are the sort of milestones in what will
surely lead to SOAD being immortalised in bronze and pigeon droppings
one
day. Real men go out in style.

Righthand men… Rage Against the Machine, Mars Volta, Tool.

Lord and Master over… Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Korn.

Best listened to while… priming yourself to face the music after a
late night out with the boys… and especially not while shaving.

LULLABIES TO PARALYZE

Queens of the Stone Age

(Interscope/Warner)

Review by Jeremy Mahadevan

LISTEN, pal: you just got to get your mitts on this album. A little
discussion on manliness first, though: what makes manly men manly?
What
exactly did Captain Arthur Phillip see in those aborigines across
Sydney
Harbour, back in 1788, that made him name the spot Manly Cove?

I think we can all agree that hairy chests and gruesome faces just
don’t cut it. Anybody can decide to stop shaving for three months.
No,
really manly folk are the ones who just don’t give a hoot.

A manly man is the one you see cruising across desert roads in his
Shelby Cobra, one hand on the wheel at all times, speeding but never
in a
hurry. He’s got things to do, he’s at peace, and he’ll be relaxing
even
in the middle of Armageddon. Smooth and cultured, the man never
speaks
until he’s got something worth saying. People might be rioting and
looting outside, but he’ll still be at the bar, sipping his bourbon
and
trying to decide if it’ll be Lisa or Denise for dinner tonight. Then
he
waits for them to call. Because a manly man never shows you how he
really
feels.

Lullabies to Paralyze is a lot like some sort of Armageddon through
the
eyes of the world’s manliest men. The Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA)
have always been very adept at maintaining composure through squalls
of
its own creation. The music is always heavy, somehow, even when they
turn
down the volume.

The excitement is in seeing the new ways in which it manipulates that
ancient formula of guitars, drums, bass and vocals – there’s no
mistaking
the laid-back, measured nuances of QOTSA’s sound, it plays with
texture
and explore different melodies through to its conclusions, always
keeping
the tension up.

What could be hopelessly tepid and lifeless ends up with a certain
lazy
cigar-chomping vigilante cool, commanding attention without ever
having
to resort to manic tempo changes, wrecking-ball aesthetics or over
baked
theatrics.

Lullabies is more sober and spooky than previous QOTSA efforts –
perhaps a reaction to the sudden ejection of lynchpin member Nick
Oliveri
from the band prior to the recording of this material.

Some compare losing Oliveri to losing an arm, and tell me, what’s
manlier than sawing off your arm and just getting on with whatever it
was
you were doing before, as if nothing ever happened?

Songs like Everybody Knows That You are Insane and Someone’s in the
Wolf crackle with the same sort of fiery energy that kept previous
QOTSA
work lean and mean, but at the same time there’s a growling menace
permeating the whole thing that makes it unnecessary for the band to
ever
have to shout and shriek at you in some unmanly manner.

All right, so you can tell I’m making none-too-thinly-veiled digs at
that other band featured today. But let’s face it: anything that goes
out
of its way to be so visceral, so affecting, so hairychested – well,
it’s
just not very manly, is it? It’s trying too hard. Not that Mezmerize
isn’t a good album, it’s absolutely stunning and probably better than
Lullabies – it just isn’t as masculine.

Unsmiling like… Soundgarden, Jimi Hendrix, MC5.

Unamused by… Guns n’ Roses, Staind, KISS.

Best listened to while… sipping bourbon, one hand at the wheel of
your Shelby Cobra, chasing down werewolves and trying to decide
whether
it’s going to be Lisa or Denise for dinner tonight.