Akron Beacon Journal, OH
May 22 2005
System is up and running again
Most nu metal is old news, but band back with good thinking person’s
music
MEZMERIZE
System of a Down
Columbia
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal staff writer
Southern California’s System of a Down seemingly burst onto a crowded
nu metal/rap rock scene in the late ’90s, quickly sprinting up the
food chain to sit alongside then-genre kings Korn, Limp Bizkit,
Staind and Rage Against the Machine.
As is often the case when a popular genre becomes overcrowded, nu
metal’s commercial fortunes began to wane under the weight of too many
copycats. But System’s second release, the action-packed, eclectic
Toxicity, sold nearly 6 million copies and clearly separated it from
the pack. It fused the group’s lefty politics with thrash-metal riffs,
the music of the members’ Armenian heritage (three of the four have
Armenian roots) and bits and pieces of several other genres without
sounding forced.
After the surprisingly strong odds-and-ends compilation Steal This
Album, the band is back with Mezmerize, the first half of a planned
two-volume set, with Hypnotize to be released in the fall.
That conceit allows the band to pack 11 hard-rocking gems into 36
frenzied but focused minutes of good modern metal. The opening track
and lead single, B.Y.O.B (Bring Your Own Bombs), shows what the band
does best. It manages to make an anti-war statement with less of the
self-righteous finger-pointing of Rage Against the Machine, with fast
metal and punk riffs and a grooving chorus. The songwriters, vocalist
Serj Tankian and guitarist/producer/vocalist Daron Malakian, ask
“Why don’t presidents fight the war/why do they always send the poor?”
One noticeable change for the better is the prominence of Malakian’s
earnest vocals, which provide a nice contrast to Tankian’s
hyper-enunciated, theatrical histrionics, and their harmonies add a
layer of melody that gives the heady arrangements even more depth.
The subject matter won’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention,
as the band takes on the current regime (they are not Bush fans), the
evils of corporations (Cigaro), radio and television’s mind-numbing
capabilities (Radio/Video), and some kind of odd experience at a
celebrity baseball game (Lost In Hollywood, with Malakian doing his
best PiL-era John Lydon impression).
Even when the prose gets a bit purple, as on Sad Statue which opens
with “Conquest to the lover/And your love to the fire/Permanence
unfolding in the absolute/Forgiveness is the ultimate sacrifice,”
they save the song from lyrical excess with the simple declaration
“You and me will go down in history/with a sad statue of Liberty and
a generation that didn’t agree.”
Rage Against the Machine is no more, while Korn and Limp Bizkit and
many other bands of the nu metal era (Staind, Disturbed, Deftones
etc.) are still trying to claw their way back to prominent retail
space at Hot Topic. But the musically interesting bands such as
System and Tool continue to show why they outlived the fad, making
music for metalheads who want to do more with their heads and brains
than bang them.