REVIEW: System Of A Down at The London Astoria on 4 Apr
How can a metal band be this good? It's faultless. Everything:
the tunes, the musicianship, the style, the performance; the lot. Live, you've always got a head start if your back catalogue is amazing - and with a show that consisted nearly exclusively of material from past masterpieces, 'Steal This Album' and 'Toxicity' they'd have to pull out all the stops to fuck this up. Thirty year old guitarist, songwriter and lyricist Daron Malakian and his American/Armenian four-piece seem able to make more noise and noises than you might think possible. With only one guitar the Armenian-born artist manages to execute every studio programmed and layered voice with his Gibson SG live on stage with only the aid of a few foot pedals (looking like a cross between Cheech
Marin and Tony Robinson). While the band sent tracks like 'Aerials' and 'Chop Suey' and 'Shimmy' into orbit - the crowd went absolutely berserk - kids and young adults (ok, and some old adults too), bouncing off the walls. Singer Serj Tankian's voice is one of the most distinctive in the world today - bringing Eastern European melodies to a western audience via the medium of metal. Political metal. Amazingly intricate, eccentric, catchy, politically loaded metal. In amongst the set, were scattered a select few tracks from the as yet unreleased new album. And now trusting that their live performance is a pretty good indicator of how they sound on tape, the whole world should be waiting with bated pogo-sticks for the forthcoming System Of A Down album. It's always surprising how quickly people get over 'first album hype'
- and how often good bands get less than they deserve; but always so wonderfully reassuring when a band return for a third album to the surprise of the nay-saying press. No one expects a band to last one album, let alone make it through a second to a third;
but SOAD have everything they need to become the next Metallica or Iron Maiden. If I could watch this band as often as I can
Neighbours, I'd be a happy bunny. JG