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Serj Tankian - Elect The Dead
| Allmusic | | So, the inevitable finally happened. Those who have followed the life of System of a Down and its lead vocalist and lyricist Serj Tankian have wondered for years when he would finally issue his debut offering. Tankian, whose political and aesthetic activity keep him wildly busy, has become an identity that cannot be contained by the trappings of a band. System's 2005 two-part offering Mezmerize/Hypnotize, produced by Rick Rubin, was a creative high point and perhaps a pinnacle for a band whose individual members had different directions they needed to explore outside that collective. These guys did it right; they came up from the underground. They started with a well-circulated three-song demo -- it reached Australia and New Zealand -- and word of mouth that scored them their deal in America. They made records their own way, and went on an indefinite hiatus before those divergent interests lessened their power as a group....full text |
| | Billboard | | System of a Down may be on hiatus, but its sound isn't thanks to frontman Serj Tankian. "Elect the Dead," his first full-length solo effort, boasts the same kind of arty arrangements and cascading dynamics as SOAD's ouvre, a sign that while guitarist Daron Malakian is often considered the band's mad genius, Tankian's elastic, expressive vocals are as integral to its character. "Empty Walls" charges out at full metallic speed, then pulls back and maintains that course throughout the song's three minutes and 50 seconds. That pattern becomes Tankian's stock in trade here, from the staccato attack and Eastern European flavors of "The Unthinking Majority" to the Meat Loaf-style bombast of "Money" and the jazz-inflected rumble of "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition."...full text |
| | Guardian | | It has a deep melancholy that runs from the personal to the global, with a glimmer of hope in the solidarity of spirit.' So says System of a Down's shamanic lead singer Tankian of his debut solo album. Happily, concerns that he might have responded to his band's proclamation of an indefinite hiatus by heading off down the same back-road which led to Serart - his inaccessible earlier collaboration with Armenian folk multi-instrumentalist Arto Tuncboyaciyan - are swiftly allayed....full text |
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Serj Tankian lyrics |
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