Quite a while back, I attempted to put into words the visual images that appear to me when listening to instrumental music. The high-fallutin' name for this is 'synesthesia.' Basically, music enters my hearing-related brain parts and a strange geometric movie plays along with it. What, you may be thinking, happens to the lyrics?
Nothing. I ignore them... at least at first.
This is true even for artists whose lyrics I really do care about. Time is needed to allow the music to "settle" before getting to the content. Oh sure, I might take notice of a word or two, but they show up as momentary fragments that vaporize almost immediately upon arrival. Think of it like one of those fortune balls where the "answers" appear when the multi-sided die floats to the surface. To me, it feels a little like taking a quick glance right into the middle of a poem — a small fragment of language removed from its context. This allows me to have fun with tunes like Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" without getting the whole message — the lines "What's the point of instruments/Words are a sawed off shotgun" making for an interesting non sequitur.
Though the music of Serj Tankian's Elect The Dead has finally settled, the words are still in the fortune ball state. This isn't because I don't like them, don't agree with them, or anything of the sort. It's more that I just don't care. Yes, I do know his general message, even admire a lot of the grass roots political work and humanitarian causes that he's become involved with. It's just that my more apolitical nature isn't all that concerned with any of it.
No, I'm here for the music... and it delivers.
Elect The Dead finds Tankian playing most of the instruments on his first solo record (System Of A Down being on "extended hiatus"). The music retains a lot of what I love about System: stuttering and edgy rhythm guitar, terrific use of dynamics, and barely controlled melodies that dive through the chord changes. In some respects, none of this is a huge step away from System. It's a kind of art metal takes on a little more 'art' on tunes like "Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition," which simultaneously visits rock, funk, hip-hop and just a smidge of jazz.
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