One Serj Tankian, puckish frontman for the legendary System of a Down, has been all over my damn feed this week as the endless pot of spilled tea that is his recently published memoir Down With the System: A Memoir (Of Sorts) has been making the rounds through the metalligentsia to the delight of gossips and fans alike. We at the NMA love this shit, of course, and Serj is one of those figures that every scene needs; a character, a mascot, someone who--thanks to a career of both superlative music and committed anthill-kicking--the editor will give you a pass on addressing by first name only. But ultimately we're all about the music here, and it so happens that Serj has released a brand-spankin' nu solo single for us to deafen ourselves with.
It's worth saying right off the top that, without doing anything too fancy, without breaking the wheel or inventing new genres, Serj showed up proper on this one and reminded everybody how to do a chorus. "A.F. Day", for those who haven't heard it yet, stands for "Another Fucking Day", a line Serj beats through the refrain like he's pounding a stake into Dracula's nuts, the whole band gleefully slamming along. It's a lesson some of today's young and hungry could take to heart--you're setting up your own tee, so don't be afraid to swing for the sun.
It's definitely a Serj joint; over a driving, garagey groove, we get a pithy menu of classic Tankian axe-grinding--vampiric rents, the police state, a regressive education system--all delivered with that playful, wild-eyed energy that made System of a Down the joker fucking up nu metal's royal flush. With its relatively straightforward verse-chorus-bridge structure, it's a deceptively layered track; a chunky, start-stop bassline gives the song a bit of an off-kilter undertow that interlocks nicely with a woozy opening guitar line, but the bridge is where Tankian unlocks the weird, barking a spoken-word rant condemning the hypocrisy of religious power structures against a dubby sonic void like he's sending all the Popes to the pit. See what they think of the rents in there.
"A.F. Day", according to Tankian, was written during System's golden era over 20 years ago. It will feature on his upcoming solo EP, "Foundations", release date TBD. If this track is any indication, there's some fun in store for us faithful.
