Artist: Serj Tankian
Title: Harakiri
Genre: Alternative
Release Date: 6th July 2012
Label: Warner
Album Review
It was a long time of waiting for the new work by Serj Tankian, and to be honest his voice was already missed. And suddenly a lot of things happened, except for the new solo-album Serj talks about bunch of new projects he started and which we hopefully will hear soon. For the second time Tankian produces his solo album himself. Already about his second album ‘Imperfect Harmonies’ the musician said, the album can be considered as a rock-record, but still it is a unique sound palette. It is possible to say the same thing about ‘Harakiri’. Comparing to the debut album or even to SYSTEM OF A DOWN, the third solo album in the beginning can be recognized as a real hara-kiri or at least castration of the previous works. But getting used to lack of crushing and squealing SoaD guitars, the listener is able to get the operetta concept of the work.
Starting the album don’t wait for the long preludes, the listener dives with his head into the musical stream right from the beginning. ‘Harakiri’ starts with strong and energetic melody, involving you into Tankian’s world. The first thing which jumps on you is of course oriental (or should I say Armenian?) motifs which are the natural part of his music. Vocals and the drums create somehow the strongest and the loudest frame of the compositions. Serj’s voice is difficult not to recognize. As for drums, flat and pretty loud they are often come to the first line and are always clear to hear. From time to time electronic elements appear in form of independent melody-lines and give the songs on the one hand a pop-touch on the other hand they represent a portals to new dimensions of Tankian’s music.
Lyrically, Serj as always touches quite important and painful questions of wars, humanity, destroying nature and so on. His songs are pure and sincere as child’s tears and full of desperation. Metaphors as an “ungly turtle” are already familiar to his fans, except for this there are a lot of dead birds and sirens in his lyrics. This political romantic previously can be just a poem of Tankian’s which with time becomes a song. The main theme could be described with the line from his song “we hurt each other with our lives”. Is there any salvation of this crisis? Open your eyes, ears, your minds and live your life consciously.
Tracklist
01. Cornucopia
02. Figure It Out
03. Ching Chime
04. Butterfly
05. Harakiri
06. Occupied Tears
07. Deafening Silence
08. Forget Me Knot
09. Reality TV
10. Uneducated Democracy
11. Weave On
Website
www.serjtankian.com
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 10
Sound: 10
Total: 10 / 10
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