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With a diverse mixture of influences and a thundering sound, the music on System of a Down’s latest release is guaranteed to get your blood pumping. The disc is filled with commentary on topics ranging from politics to pornography and, as usual, the impressive arrangements that have been a System-staple since the dawn of their career.
Mixing metal with such influences as Middle-Eastern and reggae music, Mezmerize is setting a new standard in hard rock, proving once again that rock and roll is not a definable genre, but rather an ever changing form, much like a snowball rolling downhill picking up bits of debris as it ravages the mountainside. System is very much this unstoppable force defined. They have taken influences, many of them previously unthinkable for loud music, and have moulded them into an eclectic style that is both universal and at once, their own. It’s exciting and brilliant in its intricacy and simplicity. One moment it is sweet melody, the next it is pure ear-piercing adrenaline.
Perhaps what is most important to note, especially to those who think that this might just be another album of nonsense and noise, is the beauty hidden in the layers of this album. I understand that there is a bit of a bias–an earned bias, if you will–of metal being nothing more than thunka-thunka-thunka-scream! Thunka-thunka-thunka-scream! In many instances this might be true, but not with System of a Down. The songs are sung, first of all–and they are sung brilliantly.
You may be moved, when the band hits certain peaks, to smack your camel in the arse and charge headlong into enemy fire. But there are also moments that are very hard to describe, when the very fabric of reality might split from the sweetness of the sound being emitted by your stereo, revealing some previously unseen reality. It is in these moments that Mezmerize shows the true character of the musicians who wrote and recorded it.
If you like loud music, this is your album (and I probably don’t need to tell you that). If you’re simply looking for something different that is also good, do yourself a favour and check out this latest offering from a very bizarre, but also very talented band.
