![]() Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, my sweet revenge.īORDAL: So where does all this leave us? Well, System of a Down have put out nearly 80 minutes of tracks on two pretty rockin' CDs. Trampling a shrink, bleeding in a sink, hallelujah wink, getting on the brink, just your mother's ho, hallelujah wink, murdering a shrink, burning up on my sweet revenge will be yours for the taking. Bleeding in a sink, poisoning a drink, burning up my sweet Clementine. SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) Poisoning a drink, bleeding in a sink, choking on a link, killing with a stink, just your mother's ho. Guitarist and songwriter Daron Malakian has been singing more lately, but it's still the intense shovel-bearded front man, Serj Tankian, that steals the show. ![]() The fact is that if you read the lyrics, there's not a whole lot of `there' there, but they sound good and they're sung really well. Their lyrics often include some angry political content, and since that's unusual for rock and roll, the band gets labeled as edgy and political. Terra cotta.īORDAL: They're politically active on Armenian and other issues. SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) Terra cotta pie. ![]() ![]() (Unintelligible).īORDAL: And somehow they've sold millions of records of this pretty oddball music. All four members are of Armenian descent. SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) Banana, banana, banana, terra cotta, banana, terra cotta, terra cotta pie.īORDAL: The band is based in Los Angeles. For treated indigenously, digenously, human right is.īORDAL: All right, some facts about System of a Down. (Overlapping) We are the (unintelligible). SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) Dreaming of screaming. And whatever musical direction they're taking, you can always be sure that they'll go there with gusto. But for those of us who appreciate a little tongue in our cheek, the band is self-confident enough to have a little fun, too. For those serious metal fans out there who don't much like a comic element in their hard rock, System of a Down can play hard and fast with the best of them. SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) The cold insincerity of steel machines have consumed our euphoria, transforming us into muted dreams, dreaming of the day that we attack, attack, attack your fetal servitude, we attack, attack, attack, attack with pesticide.īORDAL: System of a Down gets classified as a hard-rock/metal hybrid, but on their new CDs, "Mesmerize" and "Hypnotize," they owe as much to the operatic silliness of Gilbert and Sullivan and Queen as they do to Black Sabbath and Motorhead. How many hyphens can you squeeze into one band and one album even if it is a double-CD set? How about Armenian-American-progressive-hard-rock-musical theater-punk-metal? What do you think that'll sound like? Well, brace yourselves. SYSTEM OF A DOWN: (Singing) Breathing each other's lives. Independent music critic Christian Bordal has this review. Now the band is back with the second CD, "Hypnotize," and again they've debuted on top. That CD, called "Mesmerize," debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. And it's precisely because of that weird aggression/aggravation dynamic that Mezmerize/Hypnotize is as strong a concept/double album as metal can offer in 2005.The hard rock group System of a Down released the first half of a two-CD set six months ago. Of course, truth also drives SOAD to make passionate, if slightly screwy, decisions: Serj Tankian's ADD sputter of "eat 'em eat 'em eat 'em eat 'em" and "banana banana banana terracotta" on Hypnotize Mezmerize's detour into celebrity baseball game outtakes on "Old School Hollywood." These moments are head-scratchers, no doubt, but they're integral to the experience - System of a Down confound and irritate even as they rock. It drives the boiling rage in Hypnotize's "Attack," "Stealing Society," and "U-Fig" on "Holy Mountain," it inspires SOAD to transform the sad facts of genocide into the album's most vicious, powerful, and arresting moment. Truth is the motor for System's spazzy, modernist thrash. But the extra cardboard slotting's a little extraneous, as are some of the sonic parts on both albums. Released in November 2005, roughly six months after its counterpart, Hypnotize does indeed feature a tri-fold design. It wasn't a lie when System of a Down said the packaging for Mezmerize and Hypnotize would slot together.
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