walking upstream…
System of a Down
photo: californipedia · cc0 ↗System of a Down
Formed by four Armenian-American kids from Los Angeles who grew up equally steeped in thrash-metal mixtapes and their grandparents' folk records, System of a Down turned that whiplash combination into a genre of one — Serj Tankian's operatic, genre-hopping vocals riding Daron Malakian's start-stop riffs through songs that pivot from a scream to a waltz in four bars. Their political fury and dark humor were inseparable from their heritage: they wrote about the Armenian Genocide as unflinchingly as they wrote about drugs and self-destruction, refusing to let American rock radio smooth out either edge. Toxicity turned that strangeness into a Billboard No. 1, proving mainstream metal could sound like nothing else on the dial.
the sound in question
2001
Chop Suey!System of a Down
walk the tributaries ↓
Black Sabbath1970s · Heavy metal / Hard rock
The down-tuned, doom-heavy riff writing and the way a System song can lurch from a groove into one crushing chord is Sabbath's DNA filtered through Malakian's more manic sense of arrangement. Malakian has said Ozzy Osbourne was a childhood obsession and that 'Iron Man' was the first riff he ever learned.
listen: upstream & here
1970
Iron ManBlack Sabbath
1998
SugarSystem of a Down
listen forThe main riff of 'Sugar' has the same lurching, sludgy weight as 'Iron Man' — the same instinct for a riff so simple and heavy it doesn't need anything else around it.
Slayer1980s · Thrash metal
The whiplash tempo changes and tremolo-picked aggression that erupt out of nowhere in System's songs come straight from the thrash records Malakian grew up on — he's described the band's early sound as 'if Slayer and the Beatles had a baby' and has said Reign in Blood and Show No Mercy were 'like religion' to him at 14.
listen: upstream & heresource: Revolver — Malakian on why he loves Slayer's Show No Mercy ↗
1986
Raining BloodSlayer
2005
B.Y.O.B.System of a Down
listen forThe breakneck, palm-muted thrash section in 'B.Y.O.B.' is the same tremolo-picked fury that powers 'Raining Blood,' just with more room to breathe between blasts.
Harout Pamboukjian1980s · Armenian folk / Armenian pop
The modal, minor-key melodic turns in Tankian's vocal lines and the band's willingness to drop the metal entirely for a folk melody echo the Armenian folk music Tankian grew up on. In his memoir, Tankian described System as playing 'wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies,' and has separately named Pamboukjian — 'one of the biggest Armenian folk singers in the world' — among his own listening.
listen: upstream & heresource: Serj Tankian on Harout Pamboukjian as an Armenian folk influence ↗
1983
Hey Jan GhapamaHarout Pamboukjian
2005
Holy MountainsSystem of a Down
listen for'Holy Mountains' opens on a haunting, folk-scaled vocal melody that could sit next to a communal wedding-hall singalong like 'Hey Jan Ghapama' before the riffs ever come in.