“Mezmerize” by System of a Down
An underrated mid-200s metal gem turns 20 years old.
This album review takes a look at an under-discussed 2000s metal gem.
Genre: Rock, Metal
Label: Columbia
Release Date: May 17, 2005
Vibe: 🌋
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Listening to Mezmerize brought me back to a time when rock and metal were innovative, exhilarating art forms, not a genre that’s fallen completely out of the zeitgeist. The early-to-mid-2000s were maybe rock’s last “glory period,” when albums could (and, to a degree, were encouraged to) sound like deranged circus acts and deeply cynical political cartoons in the same breath. Green Day sank their teeth into similar themes in American Idiot, but to compare that record, as good as it is, to this one is like asking a cub to roar like an adult lion. If you’ve never heard a System of a Down (henceforth referred to as SOAD) song before, buckle up. These tracks hit you with a frenetic, finely calibrated ferocity, reinforcing the use case for controlled chaos as an undeniably effective messaging vehicle. Sometimes, the best way to get folks to listen to what you have to say is to knock them completely off their axes.
Temporal context is important here. Mezmerize was released in May 2005, not long after the American people had re-elected George W. Bush for a second term. The Iraq War had spiraled into an ugly, unwinnable geopolitical imbroglio, one that was protracted by the cable news bloodlust of the day. Many big- and small-screen baddies were non-descript Muslim caricatures straight out of central casting. The propaganda (mostly) worked, and “Angry American” was, for a brief period, the country’s pop culture resting position. Into that swamp stomps SOAD, the Armenian-American band with roots in metal, punk, prog, and traditional Middle Eastern music. You could call this album a reaction to that specific strain of American intolerance, but I think the rage runs much deeper than that. These songs don’t just attack stereotypes and narratives taken for granted—it chews them up and spits them out gleefully, aiming right for eyes trained on the merciless 24-hour news cycle.
I don’t want to sound like I’m putting too fine a point on this, but SOAD’s musical legacy is inextricably linked to 9/11-era politics. Following the moderate success of their self-titled debut album for Columbia, their sophomore breakthrough, Toxicity, dropped one week before the World Trade Center attacks. That record’s biggest hit, “Chop Suey!” was swiftly added to Clear Channel’s radio airplay don’t-play list, alongside songs like “Crash Into Me” and “Free Fallin’,” because the word “suicide” popped up in the lyrics. It’s a fine microcosm for what makes the group’s music so distinctive and compelling: barely contained rage and crashing instrumentals, reliably punctuated with genuinely beautiful melodies, often used as a bridge or chorus. Despite their anti-authoritarian streak, SOAD’s catalog sneakily has hooks for days. It’s part of the reason why Toxicity eventually went 3x Platinum in the U.S., paving the way for an even bigger, bolder, more belligerent statement.
Recorded at svengali Rick Rubin’s Laurel Canyon compound, the Mezmerize sessions blurred the line between well-executed precision and laser-focused instability. Going into the process, SOAD were supposedly running on fumes from extensive touring, a pattern that would eventually lead to their hiatus. Perhaps for that reason, primary songwriters Serj Tankian and Dario Malakian reached into notebook repositories for inspiration. Songs like “Question!” and “Lost in Hollywood” had been simmering for years. Other cuts came to them in the moment, buoyed by Rubin’s relaxed, off-the-grid setting that encouraged higher degrees of sonic experimentation. That looseness gives this record much of its off-kilter, non-linear charm, an aspect that Rubin, to his credit, didn’t try and sand down during final assembly. “[SOAD] had no rules musically,” he later said. “They could be metal one second, then switch to operatic or Armenian folk harmonies. It made no sense—which is what made it brilliant.”
Mezmerize is at its best when it plays its expletive-happy tantrums to the back row. On one side of that extreme, you have the caustic brilliance of “Cigaro,” a brilliant piece of satiric writing that’s a takedown of the power-hungry who talk a big game but never like to get their hands dirty. That riff is pure sweat-soaked punk, not unlike the Dead Kennedys on “Holiday in Cambodia,” while Tankian’s vocals teeter on the brink of an aural car crash the entire time. It weaponizes absurdist comedy to take a sledgehammer to American power structures that feel like a losing game. 20 years later, few metal songs are as exuberant in their hostility. On the other side, you have the more accessible but no less angry “Radio/Video,” a bop about the alienation that comes with widespread fame. Its melodic motifs draw from traditional Armenian folk dances, laying arena-sized brawn over unmistakably Middle Eastern, asymmetric rhythms. It’s a sly piece of business.
There’s a little bit of everything on the Mezmerize tracklist, one that’s remarkably free of missteps or in-jokes that shouldn’t have made the cut. They had the momentum and cultural cache to add more bloat to this LP, and no one would’ve said anything, but there’s nothing I’d consider filler here. Just one galvanizing moment after another. One smart decision after another. You have “Question!,” the album’s most mystical-sounding song, mixing acoustic arpeggios and gut-punch screams, proving that metal could transport you to truly spiritual realms. “Sad Statue” is the record’s moral arbiter, this time using earnest melody to frame lyrics about historical erasure that’s more pattern than isolated incident. It’s a whiplash-inducing warning that humankind has yet to heed, and, as conversations about nationalism become louder and more urgent online, this track stands out as a lost classic that lingers long after it ends.
The standpoint most will remember is “B.Y.O.B.,” the single that’s become the defining SOAD anthem. A rare political grenade that walked away with a 2006 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance,” the song flip-flops between thrash metal verses and a disco-adjacent groove that underpins the chorus. Its genre-defying mosh pit energy has inspired numerous rock acts in the years since, though few have come close to matching the original’s intensity. It doesn’t just mock the U.S.’s military-industrial complex and obsession with consumerism—it tapdances on its metaphorical ruins. If disillusionment always sounded this catchy, I doubt there’d be as much conformity in Western society. Seriously.
Let’s not kid ourselves: Mezmerize is strange. Often illogically so. In lesser hands, this album could’ve been a pretentious mess. But SOAD turned it into an assured, acerbic manifesto that still has something urgent to say about how we live our lives. It was ahead of its time back in 2005 and eerily prescient now. As I sit here typing this, I can’t shake the feeling that, in a world that seems even more draconian in its algorithmic slavishness, more screams into the void like this are needed. If art is going to be our salvation, it should dare to be as honest and unflinching as this record is. It’s unruly and full of contradictions, and yet, so are we. That's what makes it unforgettable.
Got a favorite SOAD song? Shout it out in the comments.