4 out of 5

Label: American

Produced by: Rick Rubin, Daron Malakian

In the wake of System of a Down’s first major release and success, we inevitably got a banana-boatload of groups aping the style to the best of their ability, which, at a surface level, consists of fast-paced flip-flopping between yelpy singing and hardcore growling accompanied by matching high-end guitar squiggles and down-tuned chugga-chuggas.  Some of these groups lasted past the first round, often sinking into something closer to their own style after a while, but the majority of groups that one might say “sounded like System” found out (or my made up history suggests they found out) that SOAD had more than just instrumental chops and hyperactivity to back up their act: Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian are damned talented songwriters, accompanying their performance abilities.  And just like one can forgive flaws in a movie or show when the end product is, overall, impressive, it’s pretty easy to look past Serj’s political lyrical obsessions or some of the middle fingery antics whilst being blown away by just how solid, impressive and entertaining the compositions are.  This is especially apparent on Hypnotize, which hands the reigns to Malakian – singing and songwriting – for part of the album, ending up in what are sincerely radio-friendly hits that – god bless me – sound closer to Sum 41 than a typical System track and yet still manage to tie up neatly as a packagable SOAD disc.  (No judgements on Sum 41, as I dig that group as well.)  Still, it must be acknowledged that System needs Serj’s antics and energy as a frontman to truly succeed: when the Daron fronted tracks are squished between Serj songs, they work as surprisingly poppy sidesteps; at the end of the disc, though, we get three in a row, and the simplistic lyrics combined with the typical rock structure start to diminish the disc’s energy.  Thankfully, all of the tracks here are short (save the 5 minute Holy Mountains), and the sharpness of all the players never falters – and Daron is an entertaining singer, he’s just not Tankian – so ‘Hypnotize’ ends before you start thinking too much about where songs like ‘She’s Like Heroin’ fit in amongst the group’s oeuvre.  Rubin’s clear and low-end heavy production style has always been well-suited to System, but it shines even brighter as the group experiments more, as they do here.  An absolutely quality disc that far outperforms the majority of SOAD’s peers; it’s also pretty surprising if you last touched based with the crew when ‘Sugar’ was playing.