An invasion of heavy metal

Moshers violently bashed into each other all during System of a Down's heavy-metal onslaught Wednesday night, while others danced up a storm to the pounding, swirling, intense music.

If Queensryche is the thinking man's heavy-metal band, then SOAD is the angry thinking man's heavy-metal band. The foursome was formed at an Armenian-American school in, of all places, Hollywood, and it is probably the most politically charged, socially aware band in metal.

Songs attacked President Bush, the invasion of Iraq, mind-numbing TV, heroin, cocaine, sexism and religionists. In contrast, some lyrics were just nonsense, torrents of words designed to create an effect rather than being literal.

Review


With the Mars Volta, Wednesday night at KeyArena, Seattle Center

The bandmembers' ethnic backgrounds bring unusual dimensions to the music, including folk-dance, circus and marching melodies, personal references to relatives living in Iraq, and an outsiders' jaundiced view of America's ideals as compared with reality.

"Mr. Jack" had folk melodies you could mazurka to; "Revenga" moved to a marching beat; "This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm In This Song" was gibberish, like the ravings of a crackhead; while "Needles" was classic heavy-metal.

The nearly two-hour set of some two dozen songs, with no encore, opened with "B.Y.O.B.," from the current album, "Mezmerize." The song asked the eternal question "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?"

"Deer Dance," which deals with bullies who "push the weak around," was among the most powerful songs, igniting pockets of moshing all over the seatless main floor.

The one new song was the title tune of the upcoming "Hypnotize" album, due Nov. 22. A political song about the violent crackdown of demonstrators in Tianamen Square in China in 1989, it was built around a folkish melody.

The Mars Volta, the duet of screaming, dance-crazy vocalist Cedric Bixter and equally energetic guitarist Omar Rodriguez, both sporting huge Afros, played a long, seamless set of over-extended, Led Zeppelin-influenced jams and multilingual songs, aided by six musicians, several of them multi-instrumentalists. While the music had moments of interest, it was mostly a mess of noise and action.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com