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By Dan MacIntosh A Lasting Impression Scars on Broadway’s self-titled debut includes a little melodic beauty mixed in with its lyrical pain, and such aural loveliness is best expressed via the track “Universe,” which somehow coexists with plenty of overall righteous anger. For that song, guitarist/vocalist Daron Malakian sings, rather than screams, before adding in a sharply propulsive lead guitar line. But these momentary beatific sounds are merely a brief respite because, just as makeup cannot completely hide skin blemishes, this new Los Angeles band is far more adept at pointing out mankind’s many ugly scars — particularly on the pill-popping “Chemicals.” Malakian, who, along with drummer John Dolmayan, is also a member of the on-hiatus System of A Down, finds that emotional pull in these new Scars on Broadway offerings shares a sort of Darwinian continuity with latter System of A Down music. “I think Scars is an evolution from System,” notes Malakian. “My writing took a turn with Mesmerize and Hypnotize, and compared with the more moody stuff, like “Soldier Side” and “Hypnotize,” in my opinion, the songs that are on the Scars album are almost evolved from those songs and those styles.” Dolmayan also sees distinct similarities between Scars on Broadway and System of A Down: namely in the person of Malakian. “For me, it’s very simple,” Dolmayan states. “I get to play music I believe in. Ultimately, somebody has to write the songs for me to play on because I don’t write songs. So I feel I have the exact same advantages in this band as I had in System.” Although Scars on Broadway can broadly be categorized as a hard rock music outfit, the melodic flair coloring songs like “Universe” and others, hint at Malakian’s eclectic musical tastes. Malakian’s expansive stylistic influences encompass “everything, from growing up listening to Middle Eastern music, Arabic music, to country music,” he explains. “I love Waylon Jennings and I love Merle Haggard. I love all that stuff. Anything and everything is my style.” In conversation, Malakian is a quiet, soft-spoken, friendly man. But he sure sounds angry much of the time while singing Scars on Broadway songs. This is not because he’s mad at the world, however. It is, instead, likely related to his overall frustration with mankind and the same stupid mistakes we all make over and over again. “I wrote a song called ‘3005’ on this record,” Malakian elaborates, “and it points out the ridiculousness of humanity. [‘Let’s sing a song for the people scared/Searching in the air’] It’s kind of like people are looking up to the sky and wanting answers. You know I mean? We forget there’s a universe out there. We forget that we, in that universe, are almost like a speck of dust inside of a speck of dust. And probably further down than that. We don’t know how big it [the universe] goes. We seem to think that — in that vast universe, in that huge place — that there’s a God out there and he thinks only we are special. That’s like saying, ‘I’m in my house right now, and I don’t give a damn about anything in my house except for that little dot that’s on the corner.’ That’s what we are.” Scars on Broadway presents a wonderful paradox. Malakian may view the world with an evolutionary scientist’s perspective, but when he describes that same world in song, it comes out all emotional. No serious scientist would ever express his or her observations with such overt feeling. At one point during “Universe” Malakian asks, matter of fact-ly, “Is this the end or a rebirth? ” before becoming much more heartfelt with the line, “Mother, are we flying through the universe?/Are we dying in the universe?” But music goes a long way in helping us make sense of our minuscule existence on planet Earth. Or at least makes life more livable. Even so, our attachment to music doesn’t mean we’re bigger or any more important in the whole spectrum of things. At least not according to Malakian’s scientific mind. You might say music is just one more Animal Planet factoid. “Music caters to a part of our animal instinct,” Malakian opines, “and we’re just animals. We’re like the deer. The difference between us and the deer is we’ve got a brain and we can communicate. But a deer has a heart, a deer has bones. If you break the deer down, he’s like us. There are certain things in the world – whether it’s food, smell, whatever the hell it is — and music caters to that instinct in us. That animal instinct.” On the web: scarsonbroadway.com |
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Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
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