System of a Down-Mezmerize
Genre-Nu-Metal and Hard Rock
System of a Down is a band that I have never really understood. They are undoubtedly a strange band, but what confuses me most is the point of their music. What is it? Is it all meant to be silly and not to be taken seriously most of the time? With the release of Mezmerize, I am confused even more so. The silly songs have become sillier and the serious songs (the apparently ever so few) have become more serious. Often the lyrics are quite stupid and contradictory, examples will be provided throughout. The first half of the album is actually quite enjoyable really, but the second half is what mainly kills this album for me. Singer Serj Tankian is a good singer, but his voice can become annoying after listening to a whole System of a Down album straight through. Thankfully, and sadly though, guitarist Daron Malakian sings a lot more on this album than ever before, which helps to add some variety to the songs, but Daron’s voice gets extremely annoying to me.
I’ll just be blatant; the lyrics are absolutely ludicrous. Most of the time they are ridiculous and often immature. I don’t normally like bands that tend to not take themselves seriously and that is the case here, mostly. Some lyrics to certain songs are serious, such as
BYOB,
Question!, and
Lost In Hollywood. Sadly though, most songs never tend to take themselves seriously which is horridly evident on
Cigaro, which is as lyrically offending as you will get on the album with lyrics such as
“My cock is much bigger than yours. My cock can walk right through the door, with a feeling so pure, it’s got you screaming back for more.” and
“Can’t you see that I love my cock? Can’t you see that you love my cock? Can’t you see that we love my cock? The only other time on the album that has any obviously offending or mature lyrics is on the song
Violent Pornography. The vocal job from Serj is acceptable and what I have come to expect from him, although I can certainly start to feel crazy after listening to his voice nonstop after a while. Probably the best job that he does on the whole album are on
BYOB and
This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m On This Song. Daron Malakian takes a huge step in terms of the amount of singing he does on this album and to be honest, I just don’t like his voice at all. Sometimes however, he does do a good job on songs such as
Revenga and then
Violent Pornography. As a duo, Serj and Daron rule the song
Violent Pornography together. This song is vocally the best from Daron, maybe because most of the time when he sings Serj is singing along with him. Overll the lyrics are what confuses me most about System of a Down and is a prime reason I dislike this album. The lyrics most of the time are immature, confusing, and are never serious (save a few songs). Many times in the lyrics there are words that I don’t even think are real. The vocal job overall from Serj is good, but Daron’s singing voice is just annoying to me. Lyrics-1/5-Almost complete trash. Vocals-3/5-Good, but brought down by Daron.
The music is what has changed the least about System of a Down to me. The franticness of many songs is still there as well as the crunchy guitar riffs. Now the bass was probably an afterthought for this album, after all, Shavo Odadjian had nothing to do with this album at all. He didn’t write or record any of the material, Daron did it all and he clearly didn’t think too much about it because the bass doesn’t really stand out whatsoever at all. The drums from John Dolmayan can impress at times and compliments the vocals and other instruments well. Most likely the best performance I think from John is from the first single
BYOB. Now for the guitar, this is both the greatest asset and flaw of the musical portion of this album. Talent is certainly shown from Daron, but everything just becomes to repetitive and starts to sound the same. All the riffs seem just to be slight variations of themselves. Overall with repetitive guitar riffs and the bass not showing a real presence ever, except for maybe
Question!. The drumming is enjoyable Overall, the music is a large disappointment to me, although still reasonably enjoyable. The musical standouts are
BYOB,
This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m On This Song, and
Violent Pornography. 3/5
First single
BYOB, which is short for
Bring Your Own Bombs is obviously a political song, but isn’t a very smart one lyrically.
“Why don’t the presidents fight the war”? I’ll tell you why, because somebody has to make sure everything is under control at the home front that’s why.
“Why do they always send the poor”? Okay, first of all, since this song is obviously about the war in Iraq, let me just share something with everyone, there was no draft, those that went to war were volunteers. Sorry if that got out of hand I just am trying to explain that the lyrics are quite dumb. As for the rest of
BYOB, I find it to be one of the more entertaining songs on the album both musically and vocally. Both Serj and Daron Malakian provide good vocals on the song. While Daron certainly has better performances on a couple of songs, this is most likely Serj’s best performance on the whole album. The vocals are about as angry as it well get on the whole album on Serj’s part. The guitar and bass are both fast paced at the beginning. The bass doesn’t branch out at all and will follow what the guitar plays the entire time. As for the guitar, it keeps a heavy tone throughout and the pace it sets is bouncy, fast, and that of a frantic one that works well with the vocals. The drumming is a key element for this song as it matches the fast pace that the guitar sets with some equally fast and frantic drumming during the intro, breakdown, first verse, and chorus along with setting a solid, but slower pace during all other parts of the song. In terms of representing the album as a whole, this single is both a success and a failure. This is one of the heaviest songs on the album and granted, there are heavy songs on the album besides this, it’s just that not one of those songs is as frantic. Where the song is triumphant as a single is the fact that it never gets repetitive, believe me, I’m listening to the song for the twenty-ninth time and will be listening to it even more so for this review.
Now for an overview of the second single,
Question. This song could have easily fit on the Toxicity album and is one of the few tracks on the album I am able to tolerate lyrically. Musically this song is somewhat epic sounding especially during the song. The guitar is bouncy and the riffs are what many have come to expect of System of a Down, but at times they just seem so uncreative, uninspired, and just plain boring. The overall structure of the song is actually put together rather well with nice transitions to different parts of songs, most noticeably from the first verse to the chorus where at the end there is a short “breakdown” which transverses smoothly back to the first verse. Lyrically this song is a lot better than many songs on the album and actually seems to have meaning. That meaning seems to me to be the questioning of the existence of an after life. Example-
“Sweet berries ready for two, ghosts are no different than you. Ghosts are now waiting for you. Are you dreaming, dreaming the night, dreaming all right. Do we, do we know? When we fly, when we, when we go, do we die?” The bass is actually heard on this song with some nice slides and the drumming is fitting towards both the guitar and the vocals. Once again however, as a single this doesn’t grab the whole picture of the album. It represents the heavier side, but
BYOB does that already. With
BYOB being the first single, the second should have been
Lost In Hollywood, that way all sides of the album would have been represented.
As singles, the song
BYOB fails somewhat as being the heaviest song on the album and then having
Question! as the second single is a mistake because neither shows the softer side of the album.
-The Overall Verdict-
To be honest, with this album I have given up on System of a Down. The lyrics are crap, Daron’s sudden jump to singing a lot more grates me, and the music is just to repetitive for me to bear. I like Serj’s voice, but he also can drive me crazy after listening to him for thirty-six minutes. For me the album is just average, that’s all I can say. 2.5/5
-The Best Songs Overall-
Hands down
BYOB,
This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m On This Song, and
Violent Pornography because these songs I enjoy both musically and vocally.
-The Worst Songs Overall-
Mainly for repetitiveness and annoyance:
Sad Statue,
Old School Hollywood,
Lost In Hollywood.
Thank you for reading this review, I hope you found it enjoyable. Feel free to leave comments about the review, the band, or the album. Thanks.
