Brash, intriguing and intrusively original, System of a Down’s new album, “Mezmerize,” combines screeching vocals, lighting-fast guitar work and pop-defying harmonies into a musical work that is more poignant and political than most politicians’ careers.
Whether it is one of the band’s four Top 10 hits from 2001’s “Toxicity,” or “Mezmerize”‘s soon-to-be chart-toppers, one thing is certain: System of a Down cannot be pigeonholed into the contemporary hard rock sound. “Mezmerize” brings System of a Down’s heavy-hitting riffs and spastic songs into the mainstream more so than previous albums while staying just close enough to its roots.
The result is an album that combines powerful prose and complex song arrangements into a style of music that is at times so helter-skelter it hurts to listen to, yet pliable enough to not turn it off.
With songs such as “B.Y.O.B” (Bring Your Own Bombs), “Radio/Video,” “Violent Pornography” and “Old School Hollywood,” “Mezmerize” lives up to the band’s legacy of culture-questioning by delving into the American psyche.
Each song pulls at the fabric of what defines traditional musical arrangements by exploring what can happen when traditional rock, punk rock and progressive rock combine with Tankian’s schizophrenic singing style.
However, unlike previous albums, Daron Malakian – the band’s guitarist and co-lyristist along with Tankian – takes a larger singing role in parts of “Mezmerize.” His voice, which is not as defined or powerful as Tankian’s, gives a sense that the band is working as a whole and that there is not a front man.
The album’s first single, “B.Y.O.B.,” blatantly attacks the current war in Iraq and offers lines such as “Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time” and “Why don’t presidents fight the war?/ Why do they always send the poor?” Lyrics such as these will not win over die-hard conservatives, but it seems System of a Down is not looking to make friends, just tell its listeners what is wrong with the world.
Another track that falls in the same vein as “B.Y.O.B.” is “Violent Pornography,” which condemns television with lines such as “It’s a violent pornography/choking chicks and sodomy/ The kinda (expletive) you get on your TV.” The track begins with Tankian delivering a rapid burst of things people do, such as crying and dying, before it tells listeners to turn the television off, saying it brainwashes viewers.
What sets “Mezmerize” apart from the band’s other releases is that it is only one half a two-disc set. The entire project, called “Mezmerize/Hypnotize,” will be completed when “Hypnotize” hits shelves this fall.
According to the band’s Web site, the albums are being released six months apart because the band wants listeners to be able to soak up the content of the first album before being exposed to the next.
If “Hypnotize,” is anything like its predecessor, fans will be left wondering how much good music one band can release in a year.
As it stands, “Mezmerize” is the beginning of an unforgettable album set.
