Review: Serj Tankian - Elect the Dead (2007)

Release Date: October 22

Length: 45:03

Genre: Modern Rock

You know, I've never considered myself to be a fan of System of a Down. With the mixture of two genres Ive always tended to dislike (alternative metal combined with modern progressive rock), the music of this band (and its singer) had been constantly drowned out by my earlier adolesence as "Typical Hot Topic bullshit". In recent weeks, however, I had heard frontman Serj Tankians voice while wandering the internet for new music to sink my teeth into, and something about his voice really intrigued me. I wouldn't even say that the voice belonged to someone with immense talent, but the voice I had heard was so different than the other voices heard in music today, I just couldn't help but somehow get pulled in by it.

Elect the Dead is the singers first solo album, released back in 2007, not too long after an indefinite hiatus with 'SOAD'. One of the things immediately noticable about Tankians solo work is that it really changes up what I've come to expect out of a project so closely related to the band. The "metal" aspects changed to what most would refer to simply as "rock", and the rock aspects changed to dark piano riffs with a bit of backing string. Don't get me wrong, this does still sound like something System of a Down would do, but the tone of the album became pretty relaxed in relation in what some fans of the band would come to recognize. Another thing I really like about this album is the emphasis of changing up the tempo, instruments, and sometimes genre as often as Tankian does in order to reflect the mood presented in the song.

Alongside interesting and enjoyable composition comes the interesting writing. While about two thirds of the songs have decent ideas with relatively succesful execution, I can't help but feel that Serj added certain lines in songs he writes just for the sake of having the line sound cool. Don't get me wrong, it does sound cool when he breaks into 10 second high tempo rhyme-fests every three songs, but it doesn't do all that much to add to the actual song (again, other than sounding cool the first few times).

As I've told you at the beginning of the review, I didn't tap into this oil well of interest just to talk about some artist I found on the internet. What drew me to Serj was nothing more than his voice, to which I now have a mixed opinion on. Upon examination of the album, it became clear that his voice comes from his poor pitch control in conjunction with the way his voice sounds like Tankian is constantly pinching his nose (except for the song in which he actually does pinch his nose, which is absolutely ridiculous). On the other side of things, however, you could (and I will) argue that it is these two things which gives him his haunting yet somehow welcoming voice.

Anyways, it's time we take a look at the actual songs. One thing I'm happy about is that the album manages to hold some semblance of a flow, even with most of the songs not having all that much connection to each other. The songs themselves tackle the same things that SOAD covers. For instance, there are the songs that cover love, there are the songs that talk about evil, and there are the songs in which I can't say I have a total grasp of what the musician trying to make me feel, so I try to enjoy these songs as pieces of music with vocalization as an afterthought. There are certainly some great songs in the album (Empty Walls, Feed Us, Sky is Over, Baby), and some not so great songs (By this, I mean the entirety of the second half of the album. This album is incredibly front loaded), but there are no songs that are really all that bad on the album. The worst it manages to get is easily forgettable (Honking Antelope, Money, Saving Us), in which songs the layers of string and piano occur too frequently to be that interesting, or when the song is just too messily written.

In conclusion, all I can say about the album was that it was relatively enjoyable. We are given an interesting album with a really good singer, and the end result is something that's so "pretty good" that it's somehow disappointing (For me as a reviewer, because now I'm forced to make this last paragraph a really dull piece of writing). I highly reccomend that you give this a listen, and also that you look out for his new album, Imperfect Harmonies, this September.

Grade - B

Notable Tracks: Empty Walls, Feed Us, Sky is Over, Baby

EXCLUSIVE MINI REVIEW: Serj Tankian - Elect the Dead Symphony (2010)

To complement the fairly large review you see above, I thought I'd do something else and take a look at Tankians attempt at recreating the album live with a complete symphony, replacing the original hard rock styled music we've grown accustomed to. The concert is a complete recreation of the album, featuring new arrangements and one previously unreleased song, titled The Charade. In theory, this should have sounded very awesome. In theory, removing the angst-y music and replacing it with light symphonic rock should have been really cool. In reality, however, this album ends up being pretty disappointing. The songs that were already awesome end up more awesome, and the songs that rely on rock heavily fall flat on their collective faces (which inevitably causes the entire album to suffer). Even worse, the album has almost no entertainment value. Aside from the aforementioned awesome tracks (About seven of them manage to be awesome), everything sounds the same as everything else, and this is ultimately what drags the album into utter mediocrity. Certainly, check out the album if you're a fan, as I am sure that this must act as some pretty heavy fan service, but everyone else might wish to look elsewhere.

Grade - C-