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It's Ethno-Metal, But More Intimate

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  • It's Ethno-Metal, But More Intimate

    IT'S ETHNO-METAL, BUT MORE INTIMATE
    By Mark Lepage, Freelance

    The Gazette
    July 31, 2008 Thursday
    Montreal

    Scars on Broadway
    Interscope/Universal
    Rating 3 1/2

    If someone had told you five years ago that the most significant
    band in metal would be a politicized crew of porn-fan Californian
    Armenians who write in mangled altered English, you'd have sent him
    home to take two Ozzies and call you in the morning.

    Moreover, System of a Down are not just alt-metal but ethno-metal,
    super-volting the music of their Near Eastern heritage with double-time
    drums and guitar for an eye-bulging sound that has become the current
    dissident-metal signature. They've got the box office. Now come
    the sequels.

    Who is SOAD? With singer Serj Tankian the first member to establish
    a solo career, guitarist Daron Malakian (and drummer John Dolmayan)
    make their own case in side project Scars on Broadway. Given Malakian
    writes the SOAD music, they have a clear edge.

    Now this is metal, and so before a volley of deranged critical praise
    obliterates our context, let's remember theirs: Malakian reassured SOAD
    fans that the band wasn't breaking up, simply releasing solo albums
    "like Kiss did." This terrifying promise - the rock version of a Habs
    GM promising to revive the Damphousse era - might have rendered SOB
    DOA in this precinct. Instead, SOB turns out to be SOAD on E, more
    intimate and less angular.

    But, certainly, recognizable. With his inherent (and probably
    Armenian-folk-meets-Wings) melodic sense, Malakian both expands
    his regular band's sonic palette while remaining true to its
    identity. Thus, there is ample denunciation of sleaze culture and
    "Turkish lies", even as his riffs revel in the former (not the
    latter). At the risk of harping on Malakian's heritage, it does
    separate him from, say, Fred Durst (remember?). While not out to prove
    the metal cred, half of these songs are riff-based, but the range,
    from keyboards to balladry, makes it unlike anything it will outsell
    this week. This praise comes despite a strong and sane desire never
    to hear the song Chemicals again.
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