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System of a Down is one of the trickiest bands these days for one reason: its willingness to let its freak flag fly. Artier and politically sharper than its hard-rock contemporaries, SoaD infuses its songs with dashes of wit, grandeur, and bombast. Singer Serj Tankian delivers each and every proclamation as if it’s a long-lost opera from Wagner’s LSD years. On his debut solo album, Tankian piles weird voices on top of even weirder sounds. Without System cohort Daron Malakian around to insert bulldozing riffs and occasionally rein him in, Tankian turns Elect the Dead into his personal playground. Bush is bitch-slapped (“Empty Walls”), society is scolded (“The Unthinking Majority”), and there’s even room for a love song or two. But there’s also plenty of caterwauling vocal hysterics that somersault haphazardly over the jagged, jerky rhythms. Be sure to have some aspirin handy.
