Serj Tankian – Harakiri (2012)

Although to put together a Rock album seems a quite simple thing, to be honest, it’s been a while since I didn’t heard a good Rock album. Maybe because everybody pretend to be somebody else, maybe because music isn’t art anymore, but business and industry, or because everything became patterned, excessively target oriented, predictable and plastic taste-like. Tankian – once again – seems to put his thoughts and his soul on the table, while he’s completely cut off any ties to any particular genre, style and expectations and focused on the music and his message. “Harakiri” isn’t a “complicated” album, but a honest one. And “Harakiri” isn’t a classic Rock album in its pure conservative sense, but a colorful, tripping, searching and experimenting material, each and every song have its own soul and style while all together is absolutely and unmistakably Serj Tankian.

“Harakiri” is the third solo album from the System of a Down front man and the first of four new projects/albums set to be released in the near future, the other three being Orca, Jazz-Iz-Christ, and Fuktronic.
The album is the third solo release from the System Of A Down front man. As with 2007’s Elect the Dead and Imperfect Harmonies, Serj produced Harakiri himself at his home studio in Los Angeles. He tried to approach writing a little differently this time around “I used the Apple iPad as a songwriting instrument to sketch out three of the songs on the record” explains Serj. “We must trick ourselves into writing in different ways to get unexpected results.” The album will also feature performances by Serj’s touring band, The F.C.C. – Dan Monti on guitar, Mario Pagliarulo on bass, and Troy Zeigler on drums. Dan Monti is also co-mixing and co-engineering the album with Serj. The album is mastered by Vlado Meller (Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West).
Serj himself uses each of the song titles (in bold) to describe Harakiri:

“The Cornucopia of love/hate affairs with Gaia have made us scream “Fuck! Let’s Figure It Out! CEOs are the disease.” Where abusive capitalism’s only fate is human/environmental devastation. The Ching Chime, diminutive drama of a gangsta Butterfly revealed that humanity’s tears actually outweigh yearly rainfall on the planet. We have witnessed Harakiri on a grand scale tearing out the Occupied Tears of victims preyed on by victims turned aggressors creating a Deafening Silence through which we hear a voice plead, “Forget Me Knot, my child.” Reality TV has become the searing indictment of a society best described as the Uneducated Democracy. The daughters of the evolution Weave On with blood dripping down their guilty hands onto the flag as the word republic is replaced by empire.”

Tracklist:

01 – Cornucopia
02 – Figure It Out
03 – Ching Chime
04 – Butterfly
05 – Harakiri
06 – Occupied Tears
07 – Deafening Silence
08 – Forget Me Knot
09 – Reality TV
10 – Uneducated Democracy
11 – Weave On

Tankian has described the album as “the most up-tempo punk rock oriented record that I’ve written probably since the System days.”
While “Figure It Out” is an extremely fast Heavy Metal speeding-through, while on the other extreme, “Deafening Silence” is an experimental trip merging acoustic and electric layers into a glowing, slow, sensitive pulse.
It’s impossible to wash off from my head the chorus of “Ching Chime” and I’m convinced everybody will find his own favorite(s) from this album.

It is written on his Twitter page and I think it says all: “A musician, a poet, a political activist, and most importantly – a human being.”

Serj Tankian – Official Site
Serj Tankian – Official YouTube Channel
Serj Tankian @ Soundcloud
Serj Tankian @ Facebook
Serj Tankian @ Twitter