System of a Down

Smart-asses in more ways than one, Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian may not be the first to have read media critic Danny Schechter while pumping Slayer. A dumber band wouldn't think to pit coiled thrash against mock funk and Muzak straight out of commercials for beer and tourism, and a less adept one wouldn't know how to do it with the most plausible musical schizophrenia since the Bad Brains. The resulting Mezmerize, mitigating the band's turgid prog-rock tendencies, is more punk-spirited than any recent mainstream "punk." It's also an apt setting for Tankian's lyrical Tourette's -- "It's a nonstop disco, betcha it's Nabisco ... everybody fucks, everybody sucks" -- and a potential soundtrack for a nation fascinated by cheating housewives while tens of thousands of ch

Related Content

• Bad Brains at Revolution Live September 21
  September 15, 2011
• Anthrax at Revolution Live November 2
  October 27, 2011
• The Adolescents at Respectable Street January 7
  January 6, 2011
• Toxic Holocaust at Churchill's Pub August 10
  August 4, 2011
• Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer at Bayfront Park Amphitheater, October 3
  October 4, 2010

More About

• Serj Tankian
• Daron Malakian
• Danny Schechter
• Tourism
• Psychotic Disorders