ALBUM REVIEW: Scars on Broadway - "Scars on Broadway"

First published: 2008-07-28

“System of a Down are not breaking up. We're just gonna do like Kiss and put out our own solo records”. That was what System guitarist Daron Malakian said in 2005 when he first mentioned his Scars on Broadway side project. And now there's finally a debut long-player from SoB, it's less one-man studio doodles and more of a fully-fledged band, featuring as it does System drummer John Dolmayan among others.

So while the “solo records” part of Malakian's statement may not be correct, the Kiss comparisons could well be. His band produce the sort of powerchord-heavy FM-radio rock indicative of a childhood spent listening to Gene Simmons and co. There's barely a track over three and a half minutes, with 128-second opener 'Serious' sounding as if it would sit comfortably on daytime Radio 1 and those “pretend-to-be-a-rockstar” computer games alike.

But it's by no means a Fischer-Price attempt at playing rock music. It's just that while System were at times progressive and political to the point of alienating their more casual listeners, this album keeps to the point with its sheer head-banging thrills. The occasional creepy vocal refrain ('Chemicals'), bit of pulsing synth ('Funny') or even post-punk jangle ('Enemy') attempts to give the record a layer of depth and intellect, though on the whole it remains accomplished but one dimensional, often verging on samey.

That barely matters though. Hey, this is the age of the iPod! And there are more than enough bite-sized chunks of downloadable rawk on here to keep you shuffling for weeks. But while the individual tracks are great, in its entirety this is an average album.