Review Summary: The worst possible case of the sophomore slump, and maybe even the poster child for "Maturation Album Syndrome".
What made
Elect the Dead such a good album, may you ask? Well, that's a pretty complex question, but the best possible answer would be that it showed Serj breaking down plenty if the boundaries that kept him fenced in While in System of a Down. He introduced elements of folk, Italian folk music, ragtime even, honky-tonk, the list goes on and on into his brand of alternative metal that displayed how truly how talented he was. Serj was telling us that he is so much more than just the "angry sounding guy from System of a Down"- in fact, he kept his angry singing to a surprising minimum and truly showed us what an amazing singer he really is. However, it seems that he took this feeling a bit too close to the heart. In fact, almost immediately- in the first 20 seconds of
Imperfect Harmonies to be specific, we're "greeted" with a loud, over-the-top and bombastic orchestral blast that reminds us that sometimes, barriers are there for a reason. I kid you not, the loud wall of sound 20 seconds is the perfect determination of what this ***ing nonsensical piece of garbage sounds like. For almost an hour we're given some bizarre electro-classical hybrid that rarely works and is often overpowered by Serj's lyrics and his vocals, the two things that could be considered saving graces. But even they can't save this album from being
near-unlistenable.
Nah, that's an exaggeration. As bombastic as the album is, it's mostly just bland and boring, and at times frustrating. In fact, boring may be even worse; if the album were at least so bad it's good, there would be something to write home about, but none of the tracks have any catchy riffs or hooks, and when you think a song is going somewhere with a remotely interesting sounding riff, suddenly overly loud orchestration comes in and ruins it. A good example would be "Left of Center", which has a decent intro and first verse with Serj singing softly, but then the chorus comes in with the (once again) extremely loud orchestration overpowering his voice to the point where
you can barely even hear it. Granted, there are a couple moments where the album shines- the one sole example of the whole electro-orchestral thing working is "Borders Are", which is mostly soft singing from Serj and it does shine a little, but problem is, the tracks surrounding it are just embarrassing. I can't remember the last time I've heard a song as disgustingly corny as "Deserving?". Never mind the overly corny "you're too good for me" lyrics, the cheesy attempts at "sad" orchestral music are downright cringe-worthy. If there's any sort of success in the duration of this album, it's that Serj has given us the definitive example of "maturation album syndrome"- where he believes his own hype, takes himself too seriously and tries to make something artsy, but it falls flat on its face, and let's not get started on how much of a sophomore slump this is. In fact, from the man who delivered
Elect the Dead, this effort is just outright shocking.
Overall, it's not hard to see why Serj's popularity outside System took a major nosedive after this album- albums like these kill careers (though miraculously he made a semi-comeback with
Harakiri, which was rather quite middling to say the least). But it is hard to see exactly why Aerj thought this would make an even remotely decent follow up to his stellar solo debut. If this is somehow a "response" to System's success, let's just say that System is clearly where he belongs, and the ever-so-relentless sense of Serj being a one-trick pony on his own is alive and well on this album. If not for
Harakiri, I would have jumped the gun and assumed he is done for. But even then, it stands that one are where this album is a success is that it's a perfect way to dissuade anyone from trying this "electro-orchestral" nonsense ever again. Yet ironically, I wouldn't be surprised if someone came along and successfully pulled it off somewhere down the road- let's just hope Serj isn't the one who tries it...
