God Is Wearing Black

System of a Down - Hypnotize
Sony, 2005

This might be the first legal review of Hypnotize, thanks to the delightful little store called Record Hunter that was sneaky enough to sell a very early copy of this second half in System Of A Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize-album. Mezmerize is easily one of this year's best albums, and since the guys themselves claim that the second half contains the best songs the expectations on my behalf have been hard to hold back.

The beginner "Attack" stomps the foot down immediatly. This is an overall even more hardhitting and uncompromising journey. It feels more straight-forward and accelerating than it's older counterpart. Mezmerize was the start-up and beginning of flight, Hypnotize is decent and dropping of the bomb. Throught songs such as "Kill Rock 'N Roll", "Tentative" and "Stealing Society" we get guided into a landscape of war, terror and lies. Our world, more precisely. Mezmerize was to soften us up for the message, to get us ready for the blow. Now Hypnotize is here to finish us off. Beautiful riffs transport the silly but strangely poetic lyrics forward, and snatches the listener with them. What's so odd is that it works just as well to listen to while sitting perfectly still, while headbanging and while dancing and that has to be a fairly unique thing.

It would be so easy for anyone to compare Mezmerize and Hypnotize, analyze the differences and decide which part is best, but that shouldn't be done. Each CD is a half-circle and together they form a unity that's extreme, scary but at the same time it lives up to the name more than anyone could have thought. You get mezmerized, and you get hypnotized, and you open your eyes. System Of A Down gets closer than many other bands when it comes to changing the world through music. Unless we stop them, they probably will. There is so much to be said about this album, but I will stop here and just let you all listen to the finished product yourselves. I feel a bit weird for saying it, but right now it feels unfair not to: Hypnotize is the best metal-album of the year.

ten out of ten