SERJ TANKIAN, ELECT THE DEAD
Dorian Lynskey
The Guardian
Friday October 26, 2007
Buy Elect the Dead now
Serj Tankian is the frontman of Armenian-American metal agitators
System of a Down – and he comes across as an improbable hybrid
of Frank Zappa, Jello Biafra, Sepultura’s Max Cavalera, a Balkan
protest singer and someone on a street corner with a megaphone and a
placard announcing the end times. Here, without the berserk velocity of
System’s guitarist Daron Malakian, he is a little more conventional and
a little less interesting. At its most urgent, on Empty Walls or The
Unthinking Majority, Elect the Dead resembles a demented heavy-metal
musical about the last days of the American empire.
Tankian’s earnest emo croon is less engaging; by the umpteenth wailing
chorus of break-up song Saving Us, you might feel like dumping him,
too. But even playing with a relatively straight bat, he is the
only multi-platinum rock star on the planet who would write a song
about how "civilisation is on trial" and think, "Ah, the perfect
title! ‘Beethoven’s Cunt’."