One can only imagine the burden Daron Malakian must bear. As the principal songwriter of System of a Down, any future musical endeavor is going to draw comparisons to the Grammy-winning group, fairly or not. Releasing their first album in 2008, Scars on Broadway show that Malakian is more than up to the challenge. Finally, after seven years, they return with their new album, Addicted to the Violence. With it, they have concocted a solid album with flashes of greatness that rival the best songs in System's catalog.
Kicking off with "Killing Spree," the band makes it clear they can deliver the kind of gonzo energy System of a Down fans know and love. While not as inventive as something like "B.Y.O.B." the similarities are apparent. Makes sense why it was chosen as the first single. Continuing from there, "Satan Hussein" treads similarly well-trodden ground, but keeps things fresh with a surprise bit of vocoder in the bridge.
The first standout is "Done Me Wrong," with its thrashy riffs, explosive drums, and dizzying synth solo. It's here that Malakian's vision for the band really snaps into focus. That trademark blend of heaviness and Zappa-esque left turns are on full display, and it's a joy to behold.
Next up is the moody but no less epic "The Shame Game." Featuring a riff cut from the same cloth as "Aerials," the track finds Malakian questioning either himself or a lover who's "fucked in the head" wondering "who's gonna teach you?" Though he claims to eschew clear-cut themes when approaching albums, that doesn't mean certain threads don't begin to emerge. If anything ties this batch of songs together, it's an eye toward the messy contradictions at every level of society.
Unfortunately, Malakian's one stab at topicality is also his most underbaked. The track "Your Lives Burn" opens with "I'm sick of the left and I'm sick of the right," later taunting "Cancel me if you want." Just one problem: he then fails to mention doing anything cancelable. When he declares himself "a rude crude rabbit with a really bad habit" whose guns are all automatic, the provocation feels half-hearted at best. A more charitable read suggests he's referring to Democrats and Republicans rather than the far left and far right, very much in keeping with the album's recurring theme of us vs them (i.e. the rich and powerful). Though his lyrics sometimes stumble, his guitar never falters. The whole album has no shortage of his trademark pogo riffs complemented by direct, no-frills production (also by Malakian).
More successful is the next track, "Imposter." Possibly the album highlight, it tells a nasty, oblique tale (possibly about sex trafficking) bursting with manic energy, dark textures, and a searing guitar solo. Songs like this show he hasn't lost a step in the twenty years since System last put out an album.
If this band is more straightforward than Malakian's previous outfit, it's in service of his true strengths: songcraft and melody. Even the simplest song on the album, the sunny yet plaintive "You Destroy You," finds space for sweet, mandolin-like guitar lines.
The album ends on a high-note with the title track, "Addicted to the Violence." Throughout, Malakian admits his culpability in the modern mess we've found ourselves in with lines like "Addicted to the violence, yeah that's me," and "Loss of all emotion, I watch you suffer just for fun." A consummate ironist, Malakian offsets this with the album's most beautiful musical passages, and intro and instrumental break that find him stretching out into genuinely new sonic territory, equal parts Alt-Rock and Emo. It makes sense in context.
With all the fucked up shit going on in the world, Malakian and Scars on Broadway have made an album that not only has moments of brilliance, but does so while carving out new paths for this singular songwriter.
