Festive vibe dominates System of a Down show

They cut rugs over the kinds of things that might lead others to cut wrists.

Mass murder, government oppression, environmental degradation, blind consumerism: "Everybody dance!"

So instructed System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian at The Pearl at the Palms on Sunday, not that he needed to voice the command like a benevolent, hippie drill sergeant.

Much of the exultant, capacity crowd already were shaking their stuff to stuff that normally causes folks to shake their fists in protest.

Case in point: "P.L.U.C.K.," which stands for "Politically Lying, Unholy Cowardly Killers," which System tore into like a bull burying its horns into a slow-footed matador.

The song is about the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turkish empire in 1915.

Considering the band members' Armenian heritage, the tune is a personal one, and it's a fitting enough encapsulation of a band that's difficult to encapsulate: The song began with death growls and staccato thrash riffing that came on like heavy artillery fire before segueing to a slinky guitar shimmy that sounded like something that Police guitarist Andy Summers may have penned.

Even when the band it at its most fierce, System still underscores all its considerable vehemence with a loose-limbed swing that distinguishes the band from virtually all its peers .

Such was the case at The Pearl, where a festive vibe dominated the band's first tour in five years.

Malakian spun himself in dizzy circles as singer Serj Tankian danced with his hands above his head in uninhibited fashion in a button-down white collared shirt, looking like the office square finally cutting loose after one too many vodka tonics.

With his elastic, cartoon character of a voice, Tankian alternately sounded like Satan gargling with battery acid, an opera singer with Tourette's, a banshee getting drawn and quartered and a carnival barker mainlining Red Bull.

He harmonized well with Malakian, whose voice frequently escalated to a wild-eyed whelp equally suggestive of both great ecstasy and dire agony.

Combined with the band's herky jerky rhythms and jittery, overcaffeinated thrust, it formed a decidedly different approach to heaviness: There was plenty of density in System's turgid guitar crunch, but the band stayed light on its feet with exotic melodies and a spirited buoyancy.

As such, System kept things perpetually off-kilter, alternating absurdist tantrums ("Sugar," "Psycho"), where Tankian sounded as if he's speaking in (forked) tongues, with more reflective, mournful elegies ("Soldier Side," "Lonely Day"), hurtling from songs about cocaine-addled groupies to ripostes on the military industrial complex .

Through it all, they continually deflated, and occasionally poked fun of, the machismo that has long been synonymous with heavy metal -- and dudes in general.

The song "Cigaro," for instance, began with Malakian making tongue-in-cheek boasts about the impressive girth and mobility of his manhood.

Onstage, Malakian and Tankian's movements were graceful, almost effeminate at times, and their repertoire, while rife with its share of fire and brimstone, was also characterized by stop-and-smell-the-flowers New Age platitudes.

"When you lose small mind you free your life," Tankian sang on a stirring "Aerials."

Guess size does matter, after all.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.