Album Review: Mezmerize - System Of A Down
"This is my front page, this is my new age. All you bitches put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care."
A friend of mine, on first being exposed to this album, told me it was the best anti-pop, pop record he'd ever heard, the bastard lovechild of Justin Timberlake and Slayer. Having worn out single B.Y.O.B. - a dizzying slice of post-millenium pop-metal with a chorus so catchy it wouldn't be out of place on an Usher record sharing the same three minutes with lead singer Serj Tankian screaming about sending Presidents to fight the war over the crunchiest of riffs and some 120bpm drumming - I believed him. Following the breakthrough of 2001's brilliant Toxicity, System Of A Down were clearly itching to push their schizophrenic, experimental boat into deeper waters. With Mezmerize, the first part of a two disc set (Hypnotize will be out later this year), they've done just that. The resulting record may well make up one half of an album that will eventually be hailed as a classic.
On Toxicity, it was often hard to tell where SOAD were being sincere and where satirical. While many tracks were clearly heartfelt, the band's extreme political agenda - referencing various conspiracy theories and even writing a sympathetic song about Charles Manson - left them open to being lumped in with lesser bands like Rage Against The Machine and massively misunderstood. Perversely, Mezmerize addresses these issues by muddying the waters still further, throwing the meaningful, meaningless, whispered, and screamed at the listener with wild variations in style, volume, and pace, often within a single song. This is a band confident enough to open a track (Cigaro) by shrieking "My cock is much bigger than yours!" and then have it be a catchy folk/metal song about corporate control and addiction. Clearly, their balls are quite sizeable, too.
System Of A Down have captured a fractured zeitgeist with frightening clarity. While their message is often none-too-subtle (B.Y.O.B.) and their cultural targets are too big to miss, their finely honed sense of the ironies and absurdities inherent in the things they stand both against and for blurs the line between laughing with and laughing at just enough to make this a fascinating and even astonishing listen. Some say metal hasn't been this intelligent since Faith No More released Angel Dust. I say simply that metal has never been this intelligent, diverse, or relevant. System Of A Down raised that bar in 2001, and now they're raising it again.
From the mournful opening melodies of the introductory Soldier Side to the jaw-dropping climax of Lost In Hollywood is a trip of a little under thirty-seven minutes. In that space of time, SOAD lead us from politics to the cult of celebrity, taking in scenery that includes porn, drug abuse, and the evils of large corporations, with a sound and worldview that are very much their own. They also reference Tony Danza.
Mezmerize represents a band who may well be hitting their creative peak just when their work is most relevant. That doesn't happen too often. This IS the best anti-pop, pop record ever, and if you don't have System Of A Down in your life right now, you officially suck.
10/10
A friend of mine, on first being exposed to this album, told me it was the best anti-pop, pop record he'd ever heard, the bastard lovechild of Justin Timberlake and Slayer. Having worn out single B.Y.O.B. - a dizzying slice of post-millenium pop-metal with a chorus so catchy it wouldn't be out of place on an Usher record sharing the same three minutes with lead singer Serj Tankian screaming about sending Presidents to fight the war over the crunchiest of riffs and some 120bpm drumming - I believed him. Following the breakthrough of 2001's brilliant Toxicity, System Of A Down were clearly itching to push their schizophrenic, experimental boat into deeper waters. With Mezmerize, the first part of a two disc set (Hypnotize will be out later this year), they've done just that. The resulting record may well make up one half of an album that will eventually be hailed as a classic.
On Toxicity, it was often hard to tell where SOAD were being sincere and where satirical. While many tracks were clearly heartfelt, the band's extreme political agenda - referencing various conspiracy theories and even writing a sympathetic song about Charles Manson - left them open to being lumped in with lesser bands like Rage Against The Machine and massively misunderstood. Perversely, Mezmerize addresses these issues by muddying the waters still further, throwing the meaningful, meaningless, whispered, and screamed at the listener with wild variations in style, volume, and pace, often within a single song. This is a band confident enough to open a track (Cigaro) by shrieking "My cock is much bigger than yours!" and then have it be a catchy folk/metal song about corporate control and addiction. Clearly, their balls are quite sizeable, too.
System Of A Down have captured a fractured zeitgeist with frightening clarity. While their message is often none-too-subtle (B.Y.O.B.) and their cultural targets are too big to miss, their finely honed sense of the ironies and absurdities inherent in the things they stand both against and for blurs the line between laughing with and laughing at just enough to make this a fascinating and even astonishing listen. Some say metal hasn't been this intelligent since Faith No More released Angel Dust. I say simply that metal has never been this intelligent, diverse, or relevant. System Of A Down raised that bar in 2001, and now they're raising it again.
From the mournful opening melodies of the introductory Soldier Side to the jaw-dropping climax of Lost In Hollywood is a trip of a little under thirty-seven minutes. In that space of time, SOAD lead us from politics to the cult of celebrity, taking in scenery that includes porn, drug abuse, and the evils of large corporations, with a sound and worldview that are very much their own. They also reference Tony Danza.
Mezmerize represents a band who may well be hitting their creative peak just when their work is most relevant. That doesn't happen too often. This IS the best anti-pop, pop record ever, and if you don't have System Of A Down in your life right now, you officially suck.
10/10
posted by Michael at 11:43 AM
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