Artist: System of a Down
Album: Steal This Album!
The Scoop: I was a child of Metallica, but now I sometimes listen to the radio and wonder if I'm so old that I just don't like loud music anymore. Have I sunk so low? Now, then, more than even when I was a kid, I yearn for that special, ear-shattering band that my parents would hate. Well, if I believed in a God, I'd thank Him weekly for Tool. And, after initial reservations, I can add System of a Down to my litany of praise, too. I wasn't sold on the band even after the huge initial success of Toxicity. I'd been burned once too often, so I resisted. I was eventually overcome, but one thing I knew from the very outset was that I loved singer Serj Tankian. I loved his presence, the way he kind of looked like a cross between a mad scientist, a dark priest and a Muppet. And that voice! A nervous highwire act; a giant test tube sloshing with unstable compounds. Steal This Album! is a slight step backward from Toxicity, but not the pratfall it certainly could have been, considering that it's culled from sessions ranging from the last album all the way back to before the band was signed in 1995. The best moments are as good as anything on Toxicity; mining manic innovation from the tired cave of metal and mixing it with intelligent cries of societal woe.Highlight Tracks: "Pictures" and "I-E-A-I-A-I-O"
For More Info: Off you go to http://www.systemofadown.com
Artist: Torrez
Album: The Evening Drag
The Scoop: Instead of getting married, the creative core of Torrez-singer Kim Torres and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Sidney Alexis-left the cozy confines of the University of New Hampshire for life in Spain, sans electricity, sans running water. This, in turn, inspired the band's self-released debut, Wildhorse. Maybe the birthing of The Evening Drag didn't require another plunge into the Amish lifestyle, but if it did, it's tempting to say the sacrifice was worth making. Vocally, Torres is kindred spirits with Hope Sandoval; indeed, Torrez's "After the Carnival" would be right at home on an abstinence-thwarting mix tape with Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You." Sinister elements simmer beneath the sultriness, though, both in the aching darkness of the lyrics and the arsenal of oft-spooky effects employed by Alexis. You'll be seduced, yet at the same time vaguely unsettled (as it is in life, so it is in The Evening Drag). Uncork the wine, light the candles, and settle in.
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