System Of A Down
System Of A Down
American
Serious, aggressive blend of mean-spirited metal collectivism and Old Religion. I caught these dudes at the last Ozzfest, and they were the shining star amongst most of the too-percussive, non-melodic headbanger music I had to listen to all day long. I can appreciate System Of A Down’s politics, because clearly they’re anarchists rather than “liberals,” as demonstrated in the songs “Spiders” and “Devil” where they show a good understanding of how the world is controlled by “them.”
“Mind” and “Peephole” probe further into the secrets of dominating people through mind control and suppressing information, like that marijuana is good for you and such. “Darts” is a fascinating song questioning the validity of monotheism, since so many civilizations before the current one thrived on multiple gods. I think that’s a pretty radical idea: instead of one church, have twelve. “P.L.U.C.K.” is the most unusual song, for its subject matter deals with known history, namely the massacre of Armenians by Turkey in 1915. This is pretty timely, because Antonio Banderas recently bailed out of a film project based on this event. Maybe System Of A Down would like to approach him about reconsidering?
If you can’t stand Rage Against the Machine’s Harvard-bred atonal pinko diatribes but want to hear good protest music, System of A Down is the best thing this year. American Recordings, P.O. Box 16909, Encino, CA 91416
