Review Summary: A fantastic debut, but not as much as we could have gotten from such a phenomenal artist as Serj. As good as the record is, it would have benefited from a slightly more diverse sonic palette.
System of a Down fired their opening salvo with their self-titled debut, a dark, heavy, jittery album that most resembled spending a night in a haunted house, with “Spiders” creeping over the floor and madmen watching you through the “Peephole” in every wall. While compelling in its anxious psychoses, it was nothing like mature and showed a long way to go, with some filler and a few tracks that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Their sophomore record, Toxicity, was both commercially and critically hailed, carried on the backs of the three turbulent singles, “Chop Suey,” “Toxicity,” and “Aerials.” From there their career has taken as many twists and turns as vocalist Serj Tankian’s crazy voice, making a genuine artistic statement on their B-sides record Steal This Album and combining Between The Buried And Me with Mike Patton on their double album Mezmerize/Hypnotize. Their many enthusiastic fans received their hiatus poorly, but the artistic silence set the stage perfectly for Serj Tankian to drop his highly anticipated solo album only a year after System’s final tour before taking a break.
Immediately noticeable upon starting the CD is that the music has become much more traditional in structure and technicality. As divided as fans were on guitarist Daron Malakian’s prominent vocal styling on Mezmerize/Hypnotize, separating him from Serj had a surprisingly significant affect on the frontman’s music. Gone is the precise shredding that characterized the musical aspect of Hypnotize, and much of the diversity has been thinned out with only one of the songwriting duo involved. It would be inaccurate to say that the all-encompassing sound of System of a Down has been reduced to only its alt-metal filter on this release, but you won’t find any demented juxtaposition of styles, time signatures or genres that packed “BYOB,” “Radio/Video,” and “Old School Hollywood.” Serj goes for a simpler, more powerful feel that delves into the power of specific melodies or sections. This works to a certain extent, but sometimes his passion goes too far; the chorus of “Saving Us” seems to go on incessantly with its repeated refrain, and “Empty Walls” falls back a bit too often on previous sections and lyrics. The insane tour de force of System of a Down was both emotionally compelling, lyrically astute and technically wicked; Serj brings only the first two to the table on this release, and not always those.
The jackhammer frenzy of System’s guitars might have been welcome, but there are still plenty of similarities to his old band. Some have claimed too much, but an experienced ear will detect both major and minor differences. The understated instrumentation serves much more as a backing template for Serj than ever before; in the past, his voice was another instrument that wove in and out of the churning rhythm. He finally seems like a true frontman again, after the unenviable task of playing second fiddle to Daron for much of Hypnotize’s second half. We find Serj effortlessly dominating songs like “The Unthinking Majority” and “Sky Is Over” as if he’s already strutting across the stage, much more so than System allowed him to do in their latter years. However, Serj recognizes the value of good music when he hears it. His role on “Money” and “Lie Lie Lie” shows remarkable sensibility and taste for a vocalist given so much room to experiment, which makes the songs even more poignant.
Which brings us to the primary complaint about this record; by offering such a limited range of musical diversity, Serj quite frankly fails to consistently live up to his madman persona. “The Unthinking Majority” gives us System’s punk-metal with a marching, militant tempo, “Elect the Dead” brings the requisite subdued piano balladry, “Praise the Lord And Pass the Ammunition” and “Lie Lie Lie” are the spastic sonic experiments, and “Beethoven’s Cunt” and “Money” are the rockers with an unpredictable edge. But that’s really about it when it comes to diversity. “Empty Walls” is a good song, but we didn’t need half a record of it. “Feed Us,” “Saving Us” and “Sky Is Over” provide an unwelcome triumvirate of repetitive, radio-ready rockers that nobody wanted to see from a man with as diabolical a reputation as Serj. Sure, they’re good, in that they have enjoyable hooks that don’t make you feel guilty, but Serj has proven himself to be so much better than this. If he applied some of the daffy sensibilities that we see in the far more interesting second half of the album to these tracks, this release would feel more complete than it does in its current form.
With the exception of “Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition” and “Elect the Dead,” all the songs take on some radio-rock qualities. The production is flawless but never gratingly so; Serj mixes his independent label roots with a majestic sound. Minor touches like the squealing guitars that open the album on “Empty Walls” and the distorted guitar running amok throughout “The Unthinking Majority” (to say nothing of the unfathomable “Praise The Lord…”) betray an honest affection for the underdog that doesn’t always make it into his lyrics. “The Unthinking Majority” takes a disdainful approach toward both the masses and the leaders, an awkward position to take by any means, and “Honking Antelope” is a radio-rock “Boom” that turns its sights on the destruction of nature that the war fails to inspire much passion from anybody. Most of the songs, however, are both personal and political, dispensing with some of the maniacal ranting that propelled “Hypnotize” while adding onto the poetry of “Toxicity.”
If you want a good indicator of how much you’ll like this record (although you could easily stream it at www.myspace.com/serjtankian), imagine a cross between the melodic lyricism of Toxicity and the straightforward assault of Steal This Album. Serj has produced a great CD that suffers from an overly conventional first half and being in the shadow of his greatest artistic endeavor, System of a Down. However, these limitations will give him room to grow as an artist, making his future solo career almost as interesting as System’s future.
