Going back to the element of surprise, listening now, it’s astounding how good the lyrics are. It makes for some of the most interesting vocal melodies this side of Mike Patton, and for him to draw such a comparison in the midst of all that is going on can be no less of an understatement. It also helps he’s such an diverse vocalist he can instantly change his tone and pitch, almost in the middle of a word, without having to drag it out. It just sounds like he wants to be into the music more than on any other album, and this lends him an air of likeability he normally doesn’t get. He screams, he growls, he goes from screaming and growling into falsettos, and then he’ll still start to psuedo-rap if the mood strikes him. He isn’t quite as strong a vocalist as he would later become, so instead of being as detached or operatic as he would later be, he opts to just give it everything he’s got. Getting onto Serj’s vocals, however, it’s a strange conundrum. You may not piss your pants, but if you’ve ever been in those shoes the lyrics allude to, you’ll certainly get a tad bit frightened. Peephole puts itself on echo to warn you of what’s coming, and is actually a scary song to listen to.
Instead, what you get are supremely odd songs like Ddevil, which just bounces along to Shavo’s bouncy bass technique (ah, back in the days when we could hear him) and Serj’s most eclectic vocal work. The songs are simpler than they would end up being despite all the uniqueness and originality they’d express here, you aren’t going to get a technical masterpiece like Soldier Side or B.Y.O.B here. While he isn’t as competent as he would later be, he was certainly more interesting to listen to. He also experiments more with sudden time changes and complete turnarounds in playing style here more often than anywhere else Mind goes from a roaring riff to a single, elongated note, to a droning guitar line, back to that pounding riff, and then into a black metal-inspired riff-fest. This is most clearly expressed in Daron’s guitar playing, which focuses far less on the chugging riffs of latter material, and more so on strangely constructed chord progressions. Not in the normal sense, but in that they never wanted to go over the top with their music, without there being a real purpose for it. Forget about what you think you know about System from past reviews, sans a few tracks on Steal This Album, the general sound of this album could be an entirely different band from that who made Toxicity.īefore they decided to pursue their thrash-y roots, System of a Down was a very minimalist, cautious band. In fact, System of a Down as a whole still pretty much totally owns any album ever, period.
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