Mann's World

Here's the full System of a Down review

System of a Down
Hypnotize
(American/Columbia)

Listening to "Hypnotize," the second half of System of a Down's two-CD juggernaut, I just couldn't stop thinking about Mary-Kate and Ashley. They're a package deal, right? But does anyone really pay attention to Ashley? Sure, Ashley is the one who's got it together. She goes to class, she works hard, she doesn't get into gossip rag slapdowns with the likes of Paris Hilton, and she apparently eats food on a regular basis. And let's just say it: In the traditional sense, she's hotter (and before anyone gets all huffy about my metaphor here, every single one of you out there would totally do them both). But Mary-Kate, with her bag-lady ensembles, her bulimia, her disdain for studies and predilection for Greek playboys, is the one we can't get enough of.

The point of all this nonsense is that "Hypnotize" is a fine enough CD. You'd totally do it if such a thing were possible. But "Mesmerize" is the harder, and harder-hitting of the two. Of course, neither can really compare to the band's earlier output, mostly because guitarist Daron Malakian is not not only writing most of the lyrics, he's also singing on all the songs. That's a mistake because his themes are mostly of the "duh!" variety (war = bad; Hollywood is full of drug-addled fakes), and his voice just doesn't have the power of the foghorn-voiced Serj Tankian, who has been relegated mostly to second-fiddle. The one thing "Hypnotize" has that its more attractive sister CD doesn't is a DVD featuring an enhanced stereo version of the CD (which really didn't sound that much better), a couple of videos ("BYOB" and "Question!" from "Mesmerize"), and a short documentary on the making of both CDs. This last feature is worth nearly the price of the CD on it's own, simply to watch Malakian explaining during the recording of a song that he wants all the cabinets pointed at a wall of acoustic guitars without strings on them because when he plays at Guitar Center he likes the way the sound bounces off the guitars on the wall.