Serj Tankin’s : Imperfect Harmonies

It’s easy to accept System Of A Down to be an excellent band, but one possibly a little too quirky for their own good. Too idiosyncratic to become one of my absolute all time favourite bands, anyway. Lead singer Serj Tankian has upped the ‘quirk’ factor many-fold on this, his second solo effort, even further than what the ‘on indefinite hiatus’ SOAD have ever prodcued. So you can possibly imagine that means, and what my estimations of it are going to be.

Tankian’s actually gone beyond simple eccentricity this time, in contrast to his debut solo outing, 2007’s Elect The Dead, which was a little closer to SOAD’s alt-metal sound. On Imperfect Harmonies he’s taken a very sharp turn to the left. It’s heavily orchestrated, and in short, just plain weird.

Witness the bizarre juxtaposition of strings and electro-beats at the start of Electron for example. Then there’s the outlandish ballad/political protest piano piece Yes, It’s Genocide, which is sung in a foreign language (assumedly is his native Armenian), and features more strings and some pretty overbearing operatic/choral backing. Closer Wings Of Summer is just all over the place, and it’s beyond even attempting to describe it here.

You’ll just have to experience it for yourself. Imperfect Harmonies is a seriously oddball mix, and the title seems more and more appropriate the more you listen to it. It’s an album that may take 20 or 30 listens to fully get your head around. And even then it’s an album that you will either fully ‘get’ and absolutely love and cherish for ever, or you won’t and you’ll still think it’s a disorganized, mish-mashy mess of an record.

(I have a ‘three listen absolute minimum’ self-rule before reviewing an album, and so without the time and luxury… and yes, I have to admit, inclination, with about another eight or nine CDs sitting on my desk awaiting review… to listen to it 20 plus times, I’m definitely tending towards the latter judgment at this stage. I may regret this in six months after I’ve ingested it a great deal more, but deadlines don’t allow for this.)

At this point, if you like System and/or Serj’s last solo album, I urge you to get a hold of this and be extremely patient with it. I have a very strong feeling that once this album works it’s way fully into your psyche, it may eventually reach ‘quirky classic’ status. It may be that it simply requires patience, but it’s lacking in the instant gratification stakes.