The Armenian metalheads are back for another round. Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadijan, and John Dolmayan are back on vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, respectively, but they've gained so much more experience in rocking, being weird as hell while doing it, and introducing people to new styles of music.
Reviewed these guys a while back, but like the other reviews I did in that time period, they were absolutely terribly put together. I need to edit those one of these days.SOAD are expanding upon their sound, fusing more classical Armenian music with their style of metal, incorrectly labeled nu-metal because they came out during the period that it was popular. These guys aren't nu-metal at all.
Serj has gotten better at singing, and that's great, because Serj has a truly unique voice that I haven't ever heard anything similar to. He's a great vocalist, great for a metal band, and I think this band wouldn't be nearly as good without him, he's that essential to the sound. As usual, Shavo's bass is pretty undermixed so it's hard to hear. John's drums are banging once again, and Daron has not only gotten better at guitar, but he actually has a few vocal parts in some of these songs, with either him taking over lead vocals in 'Needles' during a small section, or screaming in the background during 'ATWA' while Serj screams, they finally figured out that Daron and Serj's vocals just go together, and this element would be expanded upon in later albums.
These guys must've been on some good drugs or something, because some of the songs here are pretty weird for mainstream music, but great at the same time, because they figured out that since Serj's and Daron's voices sound kind of weird, it's only fitting to make the music even weirder than it had been before, with Serj screaming in 'Shimmy' about wanting a wife, a house, and being late for school, to his political rant about drugs, to him acting like a news reporter on the radio talking about prisons in 'Prison Song' while Daron screams with him in the chorus.
What brings this album down is what I'd like to call the 'SOAD Factor', which is that if you get into this album, or any of their albums, you, like me at one point in time, and probably a lot of teenagers in the world, will think they're the greatest band ever for a period in your life, but then grow to dislike them to the point of not being able to listen to them once you learn all of their tricks and grow used to them. Of course, I'm still able to enjoy their albums, just not as much as I used to be able to.
Something else is that while Serj's and Daron's voices are unique and fit the music quite well, you might grow tired of them after a while and wish they'd get normal, American sounding vocalists.
One thing I have to praise this album on, however, is that while there are some pretty good weird-sounding songs like 'Shimmy' and 'Bounce', some of the songs have several intelligent messages behind them encouraging the listener to think about what they're talking about, such as the war on drugs, Armenian culture, and the question of if science will ever fail us.
If you've never experienced this album, or SOAD as a whole, their discography is all pretty good, they remain one of my all-time favorite bands, and I feel that they are quite talented for a mainstream band. Is this my favorite album by them? No. I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer their later albums when Daron became even more involved. Is that saying this album is bad? Not at all, it certainly is something to experience. I found they're an excellent gateway band to get people into, so you can introduce them to more things not commonly found in general mainstream music. They helped me branch out into the arts of Mike Patton, Devin Townsend, and such, so I have a special place in my heart for SOAD.
7/10
Recommended Track(s): Chop Suey, Shimmy, Prison Song
