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Up the System: Band leavens heavy metal sound with Armenian folkmelo

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  • Up the System: Band leavens heavy metal sound with Armenian folkmelo

    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.
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