UP THE SYSTEM: BAND LEAVENS HEAVY METAL SOUND WITH ARMENIAN FOLK MELODIES
By Jay Lustig
Star-Ledger Staff

Newark Star Ledger, NJ
Aug 25 2005

The headliner of an arena rock concert almost always performs
an encore, even if the building is half empty and the audience is
diffident. But System of a Down, playing for a sold-out, enthusiastic
crowd at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, Tuesday
night, left the stage without one.

By this point in the evening, though, members of this Los Angeles-based
quartet had made it clear that they weren’t interested in following
anyone else’s rules.

Their songs often blended the raw power of heavy metal with
melodies borrowed from Armenian folk music (all four members are
Armenian-Americans). Serj Tankian, who sang lead on most songs
(as well as playing keyboards and guitar at times), had a crazed
glint in his eye, and tended to either bark out his lyrics or
soar into quasi-operatic territory. Daron Malakian, who also sang
lead occasionally, created an astonishing array of sounds with his
guitar, while the rhythm section (bassist Shavo Odadjian, drummer
John Dolmayan) cranked out machine-gun rhythms but also made tricky
tempo shifts look easy.

They played hard enough to drive the moshers on the arena floor into
a frenzy, though the lyrics tended to make political points.

“B.Y.O.B.” was an anti-war song with a sarcastic twist: “Everybody’s
going to the party, have a real good time/Dancing in the desert,
blowing up the sunshine.”

“Sad Statue” explored similar terrain, more directly: “You and me,
we’ll all go down in history with a sad Statue of Liberty, and a
generation that didn’t agree.”

In “Prison Song,” Tankian rapped, in a snide tone, “Minor drug
offenders fill your prisons, you don’t even flinch/All our taxes
paying for your wars against the new non-rich.”

System of a Down clearly has no use for show-business nonsense. Band
members wore simple black outfits, and the stage was minimally
adorned. The light show was nothing special. Basically, the only
thing to look at was Malakian twirling around as he played, or Tankian
occasionally breaking into a spastic dance.

This band seems to live in its own musical universe, so it came as a
shock when Malakian demonstrated an interest in classic-rock by singing
a bit of Neil Young’s “My, My, Hey, Hey (Out of the Blue)” before “Kill
Rock’n’ Roll,” a song that will be included on the band’s November
album, “Hypnotized” (the sister album to May’s “Mezmerize”). Even
more surprisingly, he sang some of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing”
— a very mellow tune, by System of a Down’s standards — before
“Aerials,” changing the line, “We are the sultans of swing,” to
“We are the System of a Down.”

Songs from “Mezmerize” and the band’s 2001 breakthrough album
“Toxicity” dominated the set list, with “Toxicity” material like
“Prison Song,” “Aerials” and “Chop Suey!” making the biggest impact.
System of a Down may never top that masterpiece, but 10 years after
its formation, it hasn’t sold out or softened up in any way.

Performing before System of a Down, the Mars Volta was just as
uncompromising, but in a different way. The band, featuring former
members of the garage-punk band At the Drive-In, rocked hard for much
of the set, but sometimes seemed like a psychedelic jam band, intent
on pursuing every possible musical tangent. Most songs had layers
of keyboards and percussion; some took left turns with exploratory
sax and flute solos. Lead singer Cedric Bixler Zavala howled like a
young, thinner-voiced Robert Plant, but tended to be drowned out by
his band’s walls of sound.

Opening act Bad Acid Trip — who happen to be signed to Tankian’s
record label, Serjical Strike — lived up to their name thanks to
Dirk Rogers’ screamed, incomprehensible vocals, though sometimes
Keith Aazami’s snaky guitar lines did add a hint of originality.