"mesmerize" the new album by system of a down came out today in new zealand (take that america! you have to wait 1 more day. no, 2 more days because we are ahead of you in the time zones. i laugh a madman's laugh: mwaaaahahahahahahaaaaaa) and we just couldn't stand the idea of waiting until we get back to america to listen to it. after dinner, we walked straight to the record store. the album was available for preview at the listening station so i listened to the first part of all the songs as twiddle thumbs purchased a copy. damn, this shit rocks! heavier and yet more melodic than anything they've done yet. no let downs. only, it's pretty short. only 3 songs are longer than 4 minutes. that's perfect because i'm just so impatient right now that i prefer songs under 3 minutes. i've only just finished listening to it. on the computer. of course it will kick ass on a proper stereo. i think it will be really good on headphones too. you always get a different experience that way and notice elements that previously went by unnoticed.

daron just fucking rips hardass rhythmic riffs and whips around crazy melodic shit. i fucking love it! john's drumming is as insane as ever. i love the playful singing bouncing back and forth, screaming, and harmonizing of daron and serj. for the most part the lyrics are silly but that's because most of them are written by daron and let's face it, it's just a rock album. it's not a political manifesto or a philosophical thesis. for some songs you need some words that are fun when placed next to each and mouthed quickly to make it catchy. that is exactly what was accomplished.

"soldier side - intro" is exactly that, an intro. a short and sweet intro. then it rocks full hard on into "byob" which also has the fun, catchy chorus that is poppy enough to get this one into the singles charts, despite how fucking hard crazy soad the rest of the song is. the hard rocking riffs seem like a continuous flow from pretty much the start to the end of the album. seamlessly it flows into "revenga", a rock opera on acid. "cigaro" is cool because my cock is much bigger than yours and they finally wrote a song about it. i hope everyone has taken note of that. i really like the "fiddler on the roof"-like quality of this one section of the song.

of course, every rock star wouldn't be a rock star without writing a song about being on the radio or in the video, hence we have "radio/video". but there's no whine about fame and fans on coke trying to get backstage and such. just a few funny lines that one must think the first time they make it on the radio/video repeated over and over. "this cocaine makes me fell like i'm on this song" wins the award for both funniest title and perhaps longest title of any song post-morrissey. the music is most definitely not morrissey. it's as fast and furious as a band coked out, if you can dare imagine any musicians using drugs. (there's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with you.) you have to love any song that would sing out 'gonorrhea gorgonzola'.

"violent pornography" starts out with a very daron guitar line. you just hear it and think daron. then there's more playing with vocals fast in unison. followed by hard riffs. the lyrics are about the kind of shit that's on your tv. a criticism of the tv age. perhaps because of all these attributes, it is a good example of what the songs are like on this album. after the images conjured by those lyrics, the pretty song "question!" begins with a gentle guitar and singing, but there are hard moments there too. the soft moments are really gentle and beautiful. but this is not slow, this is not sleepy. if your eyes start to droop, a killer guitar riff whizzes by snapping your eyelids back up and making you headbang and scream along. if the slower moments of that song were too slow for you, don't worry, "sad statue" picks up the tempo again. if you enjoyed the philosophical waxings of "question!", then you'll be comforted by the continued lyrical eloquence of "sad statue".

"old school hollywood" is different in comparison to the rest just by virtue of some of the effected sounds but that shouldn't deter you. it's still a really fun song. it's a bit painful to listen to a song about hollywood and standing under the hot sun when i'm in windy cold wellington. then of course, another song about los angeles just to make me miss it more, "lost in hollywood". however, when it mentions maggots smoking fags on santa monica boulevard i'm not sure if it's american slang or british slang. is it killing homosexuals or smoking cigarettes? have a think on that one while drinking lemonade, pun intended. (i recall that elastica wanted to call their debut album "smoke some fags" but decided against it once they realized what that means in america.)

what i pass by everyday to work