System of a Down -- Hypnotize

7/10

NOTE: I feel like quarantine is sapping my ability to create coherent sentences (if I ever indeed had that ability). I don't want to stop writing, though, so I'll just keep on trucking...apologies for the disjointed phrases ahead.

This is the end of the line. While System of a Down never officially broke up, and still tour from time to time, November of 2005's Hypnotize.is the last album they've released. Hypnotize closes out a double-album, which began with May of 2005's Mesmerize. Hypnotize is the weaker of the two efforts. Mesmerize saw the band stretching their musical legs, from the hard rock and alternative metal they were known for, into diverse genres and poppier terrain. However, with all the experimentation and twisting song structures, Mesmerize still feels like a uniquely cohesive whole. Hypnotize is far less experimental and far more musically straightforward, and yet also far less cohesive.
Hypnotize kicks off with the brilliant one-two punch of "Attack" and "Dreaming." While Mesmerize begins quietly, Hypnotize starts off firing on all cylinders. This opening duo is an excellent, "take action" rejoinder to Mesmerize's subtle defeatism, blazing guitars and blastbeats fueling Serj Tankian's assertive exclamation in the former that "We should attack," before the high-energy continues into "Dreaming." The band continues to breathe fire, as Tankian trades off vocals and harmonizes with guitarist, Daron Malakian. These first songs lyrically conjure images of war and genocide, crying out for justice. The band then go into the high energy, Armenian scale-driven intro of "Kill Rock 'n Roll," which builds into a bizarre chorus, before a huge outro. This leads into the beautiful title track, "Hypnotize."
"Hypnotize" is one of the most wistful songs in System of a Down's catalogue, contrasting serious political events of the world with the line "I'm just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl." The song is packed with beautiful melody and harmony, along with a suddenly high energy bridge that implements one of Malakian's best tributes to his Armenian heritage. It's a career highlight, and at this point in the album, it's starting to feel like System of a Down have created a double-album for the ages.
The contrast between real-world problems and Western pop culture continues in "Stealing Society," as Tankian and Malakian sing about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, before suddenly veering into the perspective of a coked up Hollywood movie star, living in excess, driving his car recklessly down the highway. And then things start to go off the rails.
"Tentative" takes the themes of war and genocide up to another level, and it's a beautiful song, but for the first time, the lyrics become a bit too melodramatic. "Where do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?" is a great, effective line, but "We're going down/in a spiral to the ground/no one's gonna save us now/not even God" repeated again and again is a little over the top. It's a decent song, if you can overlook a few overcooked lines.
Then comes "U-Fig." It's an insipid song, with the ridiculous lyrics (among others),"You and me should go outside and beat em beat em beat em beat em beat em/all pathetic flagwaving, ignorant geeks and eat em eat em eat em eat em eat em eat em." The way it's sung is even more obnoxious...but's that just one lousy song, right? And the next song is the most powerful of the band's career.
System of a Down, an Armenian American band, have referenced the Armenian genocide at points in their work. "Holy Mountains" finally makes all of those references explicit. It's a huge-sounding, immensely moving song, as Tankian sings about the death of his people at the hands of the Ottoman government, the survivors' retreat to the river Aras, and the return of the spirits of the dead to Mount Ararat. When Tankian sings the one-word chorus, "freedom," it's as effective as 1000. "Holy Mountains" is an incredible, cathartic climax for these two albums, and the band's career as a whole. If only Hypnotize didn't have four more songs.
"Viscinity of Obscenity" is frankly, embarrassing. The lyrics are not only awful, cringeworthy garbage, but full of disgusting imagery. The transition from "Holy Mountains" to this is so incredibly jarring that the song feels like a troll. But then "She's Like Heroin" follows, and it's just as bad. It's almost like the internal squabbles between Tankian and Malakian reached a head, and now they're both attempting to write the worst song possible to hurt the other. This then leads into the ballad "Lonely Day," which would right the ship, if the lyrics weren't "Such a lonely day and it's mine/ The most loneliest day of my life/ Such a lonely day should be banned/ It's a day that I can't stand." It's almost unbelievable that after all that's come before, the band is here, but it is. The bridge is awesome, the guitar solo is the best of Malakian's career up to this point, but the lyrics are so dumbed-down pre-school, it's impossible to take the song seriously.
Hypnotize and the double-album as a whole ends where it begins, with "Soldier Side," except now the song isn't short and quiet, like the Mesmerize intro, but fleshed out and big. Unfortunately, the lyrics are so over-the-top and melodramatic, following suit with the majority of the album's second half, that it just doesn't quite work. I do appreciate that "Soldier Side" causes the albums to loop back into each other, creating a bizarre, purgatorial feeling of an endless war that can't be won, like the spirit of a deceased soldier forced to eternally wander the battlefield they died upon, but in this case, that soldier is Mesmerize/Hypnotize itself.
I had a lot more admiration for Hypnotize when it was released. I mentioned my despondency and negative prospects of May 2005 in my Mesmerize review, but that November felt like a lifetime removed from then, though it was just six months later. I had gone through the ringer, but somehow came out on top. That late November, I was driving around in my car listening to Hypnotize, stack of freshly bought CD's in my passenger seat, flush with cash, and optimistic about the future. However, I'd also undergone a sort of Eastern transformation, where I'd essentially been stripped bare and become no one. In this Dredg review, I explored that in depth, including the fact that I became a nighttime nudist. The whole "self-erasure" thing actually did not bode well for my future, as I made the mistake of fully jumping into a new life without bothering to rebuild myself (thankfully, that rebuilding process did eventually happen). This also meant I was far more amenable, so while I was a little disappointed with Hypnotize's last few tracks, I was far more forgiving of the whole. Listening now, Hypnotize is far less close to greatness than I remembered. I can admire the Mesmerize/Hypnotize project for what it aimed for, but I don't think System of a Down was at that point equipped to bring the whole thing home successfully. Instead, Mesmerize is a very good album, full of great, well-executed and original ideas, and Hypnotize, despite a very strong first half, feels like where the ideas, and the band's enthusiasm to record together runs out.
When it became clear the band would not record again for quite a while, if ever, I was very disappointed. Listening to Hypnotize now, while knowing full well what the band was capable of before it, I wonder if maybe System of a Down's's glory period of 2001-early 2005 is a moment in time that simply can't be duplicated. I think now I can be happy with the fact that we got that period at all.

2005 American Recordings/Columbia Records
1. Attack 3:06
2. Dreaming 3:59
3. Kill Rock 'n Roll 2:27
4. Hypnotize 3:09
5. Stealing Society 2:58
6. Tentative 3:36
7. U-Fig 2:55
8. Holy Mountains 5:28
9. Vicinity of Obscenity 2:51
10. She's Like Heroin 2:44
11. Lonely Day 2:47
12. Soldier Side 3:40