Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Arty metal

Serj Tankian, both as one of the leads of System Of A Down and as a solo artist, is most associated with nu-metal -- a form of heavy metal characterized by staccato guitars and vocals, anti-establishment somewhat-cerebral lyrics, and driving pace.

Back in October of last year he released his latest solo album, Imperfect Harmonies, and his fan base is... well, they don't quite know what to think about it. It's more of an art-rock or rock opera album, adding electronica and orchestral elements to his basic hard rock sound.

Still, it's starting to grow on me a bit. This is " Reconstructive Demonstrations". Someone has compared Serj to Frank Zappa, which is an interesting comparison -- Serj has written orchestral music as well as heavy metal, just like Frank, and is politically outspoken, just like Frank. That said, it's like comparing herring and chocolate... both are very good, but they also have quite different flavor.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

1 comment:

  1. I can see a bit of a parallel between him a Zappa, kind of. This tune seems to me to be a natural extension of what he has done with System of a Down.

    Lucky me, I got to see them back stage many moons ago and had a nice chat with the drummer, nice guy.
    Everyone thought I was with some recording outfit when in reality, I had been called out on a service call because some dip shit filled up the hydraulic tank on a forklift with diesel.

    I demanded back stage because it was on a Sunday. Got paid time and a half to watch a killer concert.

    Got a drum stick from GodSmack too.

    Quite the show.

    I even drank some of their beer!

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