System of a Down - Mezmerize

Rick Rubin's production clarifies what made System of a Down dangerous in 2001 and what started slipping by 2005. The guitar tone remains the album's anchor: Malakian's layered riffs on Revenga and B.Y.O.B. hit with the percussive clarity of Toxicity but add enough low-end weight to fill arenas without sounding scooped. The mix keeps the chaos organized, letting Tankian's keyboards and Malakian's rhythm guitars occupy separate lanes even when the songs pivot every eight bars. John Dolmayan's drums punch through the dense arrangements without overplaying, and Shavo Odadjian's bass locks into the riffs tightly enough that the rare moments it steps forward, like the walking line under Question!'s verse, register as compositional choices instead of showboating.

The songwriting splits into two modes: the sharp, focused attacks that justify the band's reputation and the sketch-comedy tangents that mistake brevity for cleverness. B.Y.O.B. and Question! prove Malakian can still write songs that develop ideas across four minutes, with verses that set up choruses and bridges that earn their space. B.Y.O.B. moves from staccato verses to a melodic pre-chorus to a gang-vocal hook without losing the thread, and its structure holds together even as the lyrics pile on the sarcasm. Question! builds its dynamics carefully, starting with clean guitars and Tankian's most restrained vocal before exploding into the chorus.

Revenga works because it commits to its Eastern European folk-metal riff for two minutes before pivoting, giving the breakdown weight.

But Cigaro, Violent Pornography, and This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm on This Song rely on the same trick: blast through ninety seconds of disconnected riffs, yell something provocative, end before anyone notices there was no song underneath. Cigaro's cock-rock parody would land if the band sounded like they were having fun instead of filling time. Violent Pornography wastes a decent groove on a chorus that repeats its title and a disco reference that Malakian admitted in interviews has nothing to do with the rest of the lyrics. The cocaine track makes its point in the title and spends two minutes not developing it. These songs are not offensive; they are forgettable, which is worse for a band whose catalog contains Chop Suey and Aerials.

Malakian's expanded role as co-lead vocalist flattens the record's peaks. Tankian's voice is a flexible weapon, capable of melody and menace in the same phrase, and his performances on Question! and Lost in Hollywood prove he can still carry a song. Malakian's voice is a blunt instrument, effective in short bursts on backing vocals or gang chants but grating when it leads for entire verses. Cigaro and Radio/Video suffer most from this split: both songs need a dynamic range Malakian cannot provide, and Tankian's reduced presence turns what could have been highlights into mid-album slog. The fact that Malakian wrote most of the album, including its best songs, makes the vocal choice stranger; he is a stronger composer than performer, and the record would have benefited from trusting that imbalance.

Mezmerize sprints through its first twenty minutes and limps through the last sixteen. The decision to open with a one-minute piano intro immediately undercuts itself when B.Y.O.B. kicks in: Soldier Side sounds like it belongs on a different album, and the contrast with the second track's thrash riffing makes the intro feel like a pretentious speed bump rather than a mood-setter. From there the album moves with purpose: B.Y.O.B., Revenga, and Cigaro hit in quick succession, with just enough variety in tempo and tone to keep the energy high. Even Cigaro, the weakest of the three, works in context because it does not overstay.

The middle collapses under the weight of five consecutive songs that blur together. Radio/Video, This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm on This Song, and Violent Pornography all sit in the same mid-tempo pocket, all lean on the same verse-chorus-verse structure with minimal development, and all end before they justify their existence. The sequencing offers no breathing room: no instrumental break, no tonal shift, just a parade of two-minute sketches that mistake speed for momentum. Question! arrives as a reprieve, its slower build and actual dynamics offering the first real contrast since the opening sprint, but by then the album has already spent its goodwill.

The back half tries to recover with Sad Statue and Old School Hollywood but cannot decide whether it wants to be atmospheric or punchy. Sad Statue aims for the melancholy of Aerials but settles for a forgettable mid-tempo groove, and Old School Hollywood's name-dropping feels like a Ween B-side that wandered into the wrong recording session. Lost in Hollywood closes the album with acoustic guitars and harmonized vocals, a clear attempt at an emotional climax, but the lyrics about the Hollywood machine ring hollow when the album itself feels rushed to market. The ballad works as a standalone track; as the ending to a thirty-six-minute sprint, it lands like a shrug.

Mezmerize ranks below Toxicity in System of a Down's catalog because it never justifies its own existence as a separate release. The decision to split the material into two albums serves the release schedule more than the music: Mezmerize has four or five songs worth keeping and six that feel like they were included to make the tracklist look complete. B.Y.O.B. alone justifies the album's success, a Grammy-winning single that holds up as one of the band's sharpest political statements wrapped in their catchiest songwriting. Question! and Revenga prove the band could still write songs that developed ideas instead of cycling through them. Everything else is either filler or a sketch that needed more time in the room.

This album is for fans who want the hits and can tolerate the clutter, or for completists working through the catalog in order. Anyone looking for a starting point should begin with Toxicity, which does everything Mezmerize attempts with better songs and a clearer sense of purpose. New listeners arriving from B.Y.O.B. should skip to Hypnotize after the first five tracks here; the back half of Mezmerize offers diminishing returns. Start with B.Y.O.B., Revenga, and Question! to hear the band at its sharpest, then decide whether the rest is worth the time.

Follow this album with Toxicity to hear what the formula sounded like when it was still being invented, or with Hypnotize to hear whether the second half of the double album justified the split. Mezmerize is not a failure, but it is the first System of a Down album that sounds like it is coasting on the band's reputation instead of building it. The guitar work remains excellent, the production is professional, and the best songs are genuinely great. The problem is that half the album sounds like it was finished because the calendar said so, not because the band had nothing left to say.