I hope your stepson doesn't eat the fish

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

22/05/05 : Mezmerize - System Of A Down

Our second visit with the noise merchants and last time it was all too much for me, so my expectations are not high here at all.

Well, initially I thought we were for a similar experience but as things progressed I found myself becoming more intrigued by it all.  Yes, a lot of it is shouty lyrics over propulsive guitars and drums but there's an awful lot more in there which made me raise my eyebrows.  In quite a few places, the shouty lyrics are backed up by medieval harmonies which feels like it should totally fail but manages to work quite well.  There are also definite overtones of Queen, Sparks and Green Day in various places and then there's "Radio/Video" which sounds like a Russian folk song which has been recorded by The Special - it's really quite something.  I can't exactly say I liked the album, but you certainly can't accuse it of being boring - and at 36 minutes it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome.

This week we're at #2 with a new entry at the start of an eleven week run, with this being as high as it got, but that seems like a good run for the lads.  The rest of the top five were Faithless (a new entry), Van Morrison (another new entry), Akon and Steve Brookstein (which is QUITE the mix) and the next highest entries are a somewhat unexpected Elvis Presley (#13) and Maximo Park's A Certain Trigger (#15) which I remember really liking.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fourth album, gives us some pointless facts about a couple of the songs and that's pretty much it.  The critical response was very positive and the commercial response was even better, with it getting to #1 in a load of countries including France, Germany and the US - I really don't remember them being as big as they obviously were.

"Customers also listened to" Serj Tankian, Darion Malakian (can you guess which band those two are in?), Korn and Slipknot - all of which I'd say I'd generally actively avoid.  But I really didn't mind this at all - it was, at the very least, intriguing and, in places, almost enjoyable.  High praise indeed!

15/05/05 - Better than expected, but still quite annoying
29/05/05 - Pleasingly tuneful and mildly challenging

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