Scars On Broadway: Scars On Broadway : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When you've made your name and fortune on fierce weirdness, the most drastic thing you can do is flaunt some restraint. In System of a Down, singer-guitarist Daron Malakian's bright yelp was already the more normal voice next to Serj Tankian's operatic harangue. But as Scars on Broadway, with System drummer John Dolmayan, Malakian shaves System's punk-dervish and metallic-vengeance extremes into straight-on rock glazed with New Wave keyboards and impish-angel harmonies. It is a cleverly barbed normality. "Funny" is a catchy death wish that somehow evokes Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" amid burbling Eighties synthesizer. "Insane" is steady, rolling darkness with a Who-ish splash of power chords at the end of each verse. There is little hope or redemption in Malakian's writing — "Chemicals" is a portrait of vicious co-dependency — and his rage, irony and expletives sometimes overwhelm the music's simplified sparkle and drive. That doesn't happen in the bullet rock, hairpin turns and minimal chant of "Cute Machines." The song is basically nonsense — and a fine, uncomplicated high.