He feels people tend to attach themselves to a band name, and consequently become reluctant to listen to similar music from a different project: “I swear to god, there weren’t many changes for this record. “I was nervous too, because of not putting out music for so long.” “People have had time to live with that first Scars album, and a lot of time has passed since the last SOAD album… I think people have realised that I’m a big part of the writing there, so now fans don’t mind so much whether it’s System or Scars,” he adds.
“All in all I’m just really happy to put this album out, I knew it was a strong record… some of these songs could have ended up as System songs, so I was waiting to see what was going to happen with that first. In the hands of other bands, this combination might have sounded convoluted or chaotic, but System Of A Down’s methodical technique and intellectual bent led to greatness up until 2005’s Hypnotize, after which the band took an extended hiatus from recording to focus on live dates.“It’s a really heavy track, I don’t always get a chance to scream and belt it out like that, so that was fun too,” Malakian agrees. Unique time signatures, dizzying rhythmic passages, and Tankian’s motormouthed vocal delivery collided with inventive guitar work based around stinging riffs (“B.Y.O.B.”), evocative soundscapes (“Aerials”), and prog-caliber complexity (“Hypnotize”). However, beginning with 2001’s Toxicity, System Of A Down leaped into an entirely distinct musical realm, thanks to Malakian’s unorthodox approach to composition.
On the group’s self-titled 1998 debut, piledriving metal riffs and Tankian’s gruff vocals made them mainstream metal darlings the band opened for Slayer and Metallica and landed a slot on Ozzfest. Guitarist Daron Malakian and Tankian initially started playing music together in the early ’90s.
The California band’s songs condemn war, violence, and oppression, with 2005’s “Holy Mountains” specifically raising awareness of the Armenian Genocide, an early-20th-century event that affected family members of frontman Serj Tankian. System Of A Down rose to prominence in the age of nu-metal, but the group’s socially conscious lyrics have far more in common with the ’90s punk underground and political firebrands such as Rage Against the Machine.
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