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Orange County Register, CA
May 20 2005
System of a Down doesn't mince words
CD Review: The first half of a divided double album, System of a
Down's "Mezmerize" is the quartet's sharpest work yet.
System of a Down, "Mezmerize"(American/ Columbia) - The secret to
this unclassifiable quartet of Armenian absurdists' brilliance is
their brevity. Not just in the sense time, though it is impressive
that this first half of a divided double album ("Hypnotize" is due in
fall) crams together such a wealth of brain-teasers and twisting
meter switches without going over 37 minutes.
Unlike the band's previous efforts, which flailed toward feeble
finales, no track here overstays its welcome. Greatly abetted by
sympathetic producer Rick Rubin, each cut melds Elfmanesque lunacy,
Zappa-style satire and an affinity for soaring and swooping old-world
Eastern chants to metallic (but never overly abrasive) hooks and
funky change-ups that should seize even those fleeing from it.
But that's not the sort of brevity that sets this singular System
apart; it's in the way chief madmen Daron Malakian (guitars and
vocals) and Serj Tankian (vocals) make stinging points with only a
line or two. One defiant couplet - "Why don't the presidents fight
the war? / Why do they always send the poor?" - accomplishes
everything scores of recent protest pieces have been struggling to
say, or simply overstating.
Wisely, Malakian and Tankian, their voices superbly locked in
otherworldly harmony when not taking turns dropping verbal bombs,
simply repeat their best phrases, rather than try to elaborate. It's
a trick Zappa knew well but rarely employed so succinctly, though the
over-the- top anatomy comparison and operatic parody of "Cigaro"
seems ripped from his work.
System - natural metalheads as much as avant-gardists - remain
experts of the wicked jab, preferring to let the walloping,
mind-boggling force of their choppy music do more talking than any
direct attacks, regardless of the target: "Radio/Video," television
and extreme perversity in "Violent Pornography," Hollywood vapidity
(more than once) and the overriding attitude that their generation is
grossly apathetic.
"We'll go down in history / With a sad Statue of Liberty / And a
generation that didn't agree," they sing in one of the album's more
conventional yet crushing moments. It's a look- in-the-mirror
breakthrough on what is surely their sharpest work yet. Grade:A (Ben
Wener/The Register)
May 20 2005
System of a Down doesn't mince words
CD Review: The first half of a divided double album, System of a
Down's "Mezmerize" is the quartet's sharpest work yet.
System of a Down, "Mezmerize"(American/ Columbia) - The secret to
this unclassifiable quartet of Armenian absurdists' brilliance is
their brevity. Not just in the sense time, though it is impressive
that this first half of a divided double album ("Hypnotize" is due in
fall) crams together such a wealth of brain-teasers and twisting
meter switches without going over 37 minutes.
Unlike the band's previous efforts, which flailed toward feeble
finales, no track here overstays its welcome. Greatly abetted by
sympathetic producer Rick Rubin, each cut melds Elfmanesque lunacy,
Zappa-style satire and an affinity for soaring and swooping old-world
Eastern chants to metallic (but never overly abrasive) hooks and
funky change-ups that should seize even those fleeing from it.
But that's not the sort of brevity that sets this singular System
apart; it's in the way chief madmen Daron Malakian (guitars and
vocals) and Serj Tankian (vocals) make stinging points with only a
line or two. One defiant couplet - "Why don't the presidents fight
the war? / Why do they always send the poor?" - accomplishes
everything scores of recent protest pieces have been struggling to
say, or simply overstating.
Wisely, Malakian and Tankian, their voices superbly locked in
otherworldly harmony when not taking turns dropping verbal bombs,
simply repeat their best phrases, rather than try to elaborate. It's
a trick Zappa knew well but rarely employed so succinctly, though the
over-the- top anatomy comparison and operatic parody of "Cigaro"
seems ripped from his work.
System - natural metalheads as much as avant-gardists - remain
experts of the wicked jab, preferring to let the walloping,
mind-boggling force of their choppy music do more talking than any
direct attacks, regardless of the target: "Radio/Video," television
and extreme perversity in "Violent Pornography," Hollywood vapidity
(more than once) and the overriding attitude that their generation is
grossly apathetic.
"We'll go down in history / With a sad Statue of Liberty / And a
generation that didn't agree," they sing in one of the album's more
conventional yet crushing moments. It's a look- in-the-mirror
breakthrough on what is surely their sharpest work yet. Grade:A (Ben
Wener/The Register)