UK Newsquest Regional Press – This is York
June 16, 2005
System Of A Down Mezmerize (Columbia) HHH
Matthew Woodcock ([email protected])
IN terms of inventiveness System Of A Down can have few peers.
Mesmerize is schizophrenic in the extreme and totally unpredictable
but all the better for it.
One minute you are listening to ear-splitting thrash metal before
being hit with a beautiful melodic chorus. Radio/Video even has
elements of polka fused in with the messy rock mayhem.
Bring Your Own Bombs is a breathless anti-war rant with vocalist Serj
Tankian breaking out into an R&B chorus and the robotic voices and
strange synth sounds of Old School Hollywood are off the radar even
for these guys.
The US Government’s war record is just one of a number of targets for
the angry Armenian-American four-piece who are releasing a second CD –
Hypnotize – to accompany this within a few months.