For those fans eagerly awaiting the next System of a Down album, this could very well have been your wish. Political, fast-paced, heavy and unoriginal are some of the words you could use to describe Serj Tankian’s new solo album. Showing no real signs of experimentation, Serj Tankian has shown neither the hunger to push his musical style forwards nor to pursue his influence into other styles.
Some credit must be given to Serj for performing and recording the majority of instruments himself; in addition to singing. He was, however, given massive help by guest artists such as, John Dolmayan , Byan Mantia and Antonio Pontarelli and has shown few signs of variety through his major control and influence over this album. The few exceptions over the entirety of this album were two tracks. The song, also the named album, Elect the Dead gave us a great ballad, which although was limited to vocals and keyboard, showed a great sense of relief in the beauty of simplicity. The ending track Gratefully Disappeared showed more variety within the instruments producing an intriguing choice of bongos and strings, rather than Serj’s vocals which stuck to a more listless talking; as opposed to singing. This was yet another breath in the overflowing sea of monotony that was Serj Tankian’s Elect the Dead .
Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed System of a Down’s political influenced music, with their new vocal harmonies crossed with the older fast paced metal singing, that is System of a Down. But I think a solo album is cause for something special; an artist showing off his or her talent, and if this is all Serj has to offer the musical world, then he should stick to performance behind a band’s name.
However, I have no doubt millions of System of a Down fans will sit down to the new solo album over the next few months with no regret from their purchase, and no thought toward it’s lack of variety. So who could blame Serj Tankian for his little change in music? It is the music we have known and loved for so long; I merely ask from a musician’s point of view, does this really show talent?
