MUSIC NEWS AND MORE, PLAYED AT FULL BLAST
Armies of One
The big guns behind System of a Down, Pearl Jam, and
Tool have just fired off new solo albums. But will these
efforts command an audience or march into oblivion?
BY KYLE ANDERSON / PHOTOGRAPH BY YE RIN MOK

Serj Tankian, photographed for Spin in Los Angeles, September 11, 2007

The crunchy guitars stutter and wail over hiccupy Gypsy drums as someone chants, “We don’t need your hypocrisy.” The track shifts from lightning-quick hardcore to piano swing, capped by a croon of “Antidepressants / Controlling tools of your system / Making life more tolerable.” No doubt about it: This new System of a Down track is awesome. • But here’s the thing: Only 25 percent of the band showed up. “The Unthinking Majority” is actually from the debut solo album by Serj Tankian, the band’s elastic-voiced lead singer. Even Tankian himself admits, “It’s hard to say what separates one of these songs from a