LOS ANGELES, CA (American/Columbia Records) - The new
System Of A Down studio album, Hypnotize, has just debuted at No 1 on the Billboard Top 200 best-selling albums chart, giving the groundbreaking Los Angeles-based rock band its second No 1 debut in a mere six months.
As Hypnotize glides into the top slot of the Top 200, System Of A Down - Serj Tankian (vocals), Daron Malakian (guitar, vocals), Shavo Odadjian (bass) and John Dolmayan (drums) - has become the first band in the history of the chart to score two No 1 debuts with new studio albums in a single calendar year.
With true first week's sales of 320,185, Hypnotize, the eagerly-awaited finale to System Of A Down's epic two-part Mezmerize/Hypnotize double album set, is mirroring the success of part one, Mezmerize, which debuted at No 1 the week of May 17, 2005. (Six months after its release, Mezmerize remains firmly planted in the Top 200.)
Hypnotize, the fifth studio album from System Of A Down, is the group's third to debut at No 1. Toxicity, the watershed release that brought the band its first major success, debuted at No 1 the week ending September 9, 2001 with first week's sales of 222,037. The album has gone on to sell more than 6 million copies worldwide. Global sales for System Of A Down albums and singles now total more than 16 million records.
The U.S. music press corps, from the underground to the mainstream, has been universal in its praise for System Of A Down and Mezmerize/Hypnotize:
"Rock's heaviest oddballs drop bombs and blow minds on the second disc of their Mezmerize/Hypnotize project." (***1/2)
- David Fricke, Rolling Stone, December 1, 2005
"Much of this hard-rock rampage, a sequel to May's Mezmerize, sounds like a war zone, with strafing guitars and machine-gun beats piercing a darkness pregnant with tension and aggression." (***)
- Edna Gundersen, USA Today, November 22, 2005
" ... the band's best album so far ... "
- Ben Ratliff, New York Times, November 21, 2005
"It's a measure of the band's tenacity and integrity that what seemed like an impenetrable foreign tongue when they introduced it seven years ago has become a universal language." (***1/2)
- Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2005
"a double album masterpiece"
- Mikael Wood, Revolver, December 2005
"With Mezmerize and now Hypnotize, System accelerate their shifts from pummel to tune to rant to majesty, so that three-minute songs can sound like epics."
- Jon Pareles, Blender, December 2005
