Ace Audio: "Aerials" - System of a Down

How did it take me this long to get to my favourite band? Not even looking at my Auditory Abominations, this is my thirteenth Ace Audio, and the first one I did was of one of my favourite songs, but not my favourite. Also, while I'm on the subject, I did do my first Auditory Abomination on a song by my most hated music artist, so in all fairness, this was a bit overdue.

System of a Down is my favourite band, they are rough, political and oh so blunt, that is the best way I can describe them, although they have polished their sound quite a bit, especially for songs like "Chop Suey!" and "Soldier Side", which is a contrast to a song like "BYOB"  or "Sugar". The song I'm looking at is one of these polished songs, but it is my favourite System of a Down song, although I may do one of their rougher songs in the future.

The song begins with a slow, orchestral build up, followed by a simple but melodic guitar riff. After a heavy drum beat, the vocals kick in loudly. This is the moment the song really kicks up, as the electric guitars and drums kick in and Serj's vocals burst in with some amazing opening lyrics. Not as good as "The Sound of Silence", but it still has a nice simile, and is followed by some incredible guitar work by Daron Malakian.

What makes this my favourite System of a Down song though? It is simple really. The guitar work is rough, but very smooth, Serj has quite clean vocals, but they match the instrumentals perfectly. I also love the lyrics, they are drenched in beautiful simile and feature plenty of good metaphors and images. The lines "We drink from the river, than we turn around and put up our walls." Which could mean so many things. It could be a metaphor for segregation or even something as easy as country borders.

I also love the lyrics "We are the ones that want to choose/Always want to play, but you never want to lose", which could refer to war, riots, or again, even something as simple as getting placed in prison.

Although, I am not sure what the chorus is more or less about, it does sound really good though. The entire song sounds really nice, something like a traditional rhythm, although I myself am not particularly versed in traditional music of any culture, aside from folk music of Ireland and Eastern Canada, so I am not an expert. But the instrumentals just make this song, and there is an odd keyboard sound in the second chorus, but it also sounds really nice.

And speaking of traditional songs, the album version of this song has a bonus addition, an instrumental known as "Arto". It sounds nice, but I am kind of annoyed at how it is sort of tacked on at the end of the song. When My Chemical Romance had a bonus track in "Blood", they had it play as it's own song, instead of tacking it on at the end of "Famous Last Words". So, what I'm saying is, that a band I don't like a whole lot, actually did something better than my favourite band.

But as a whole, the song is beautiful. "Chop Suey!" may be a close second for my favourite SOAD song, but this one outshines it by a lot. It was not only an amazing song, but a great way to end the album on. Songs like this and "Question!" are the reasons System of a Down is my favourite band, and I loved looking at this song.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and next time will be something fun.