Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway Dictator Review

Dictator

1. Lives
2. Angry Guru
3. Dictator
four. Fuck And Kill
5. Guns Are Loaded
6. Never Forget
7. Talkin' Shit
eight. Till The End
9. We Won't Obey
10. Sickening Wars
eleven. Gie Mou
12. Assimilate

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Typical. You lot wait 13 years for a new System Of A Down anthology and then, well, none come up along at once. Despite the odd vague hint and tantalising hope, that band remain stuck in the same volition-they-won't-they/OK-and so-they-won't holding pattern that has prevented them from knuckling downward to brand a follow-up to Hypnotize and Mezmerize.

Ane unexpected side-consequence of this passive-aggressive intra-ring soap opera is that it turns out Daron Malakian has had a Scars On Broadway album squirrelled abroad for at to the lowest degree half that time. The songs that make up Dictator – itself the very belated follow-up to SOB's self-titled 2008 debut – stretch back to 2012. The guitarist has been sitting on them e'er since, unwilling to stride on System's toes while simultaneously being just as confused as the rest of us as to what the hell was going on with his own band.

He's evidently decided enough is enough, and set up Dictator free from whatever sound-proofed cellar he's been keeping it in for the last half-decade. And thank the gods of schizoid Armenian-American metal that he has, because it'southward a reminder of just what the earth has been missing.

Given that Daron always had the biggest manus in System Of A Down's songwriting, it's no surprise that Dictator doesn't stray also far from the mothership. Lead-off runway Lives takes the same drunken-master arroyo equally SOAD, staggering in on the kind of wobbly-legged riff that sounds similar information technology's virtually to plummet nether its own weight, just to suddenly and unexpectedly have flight. 'Nosotros are the people who were kicked out of history,' sings Daron with a nod to Armenian culture and the horrific genocide that informs so much of his other band'south piece of work. Angry Guru possesses the aforementioned bohemian spirit, its relentless thrashings giving way to an unhinged nursery rhyme rhythm.

But this is much more than a high-end System Of A Down knock-off. Daron isn't stupid plenty to try to replicate Serj Tankian'southward psycho-prophet gibberings, nor is he and so lazy that he'due south just recycling that outfit'southward greatest hits. The album'due south most memorable moments come when he casts bated the template he helped draw upwardly 20 years ago and unfurls his own individual freak flag. Till The End is a burst of fuzzy alt-pop that sounds similar Weezer fed through a distortion pedal. Even more startling is Gie Mou, an emotive instrumental cover of a traditional Greek pop song whose title translates as 'My Son' – an explicit nod to the Mediterranean part of Malakian'due south gloriously multi-cultural heritage. Though the fact he immediately follows upwardly it with the anthology'due south pall closer, Digest – by far the heaviest thing here – indicates he's not near to give himself over to globe music. Or at least no more than he already has.

It's non hard to read Dictator as a sly 'fuck you' to his on-off bandmates, or at least the ones holding upward a potential anthology. It'due south evident in their grand rebranding – they're no longer only Scars On Broadway, merely now 'Daron Malakian And Scars On Broadway', a definite 'Who Needs You Guys Anyway?' statement. Simply it's also there in the fact that, yeah, many of these songs could quite have easily parked their backsides on a SOAD tape. On this evidence, that's System Of A Down's loss more than it is ours.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early on 90s. During that fourth dimension, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Archetype Stone, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

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Source: https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/daron-malakian-and-scars-on-broadway-dictator-album-review