2001 Silverbullit - Citizen Bird
If you write, perform and produce all the music on an album, you might as well include your own name in the artist moniker. If you then intend to perform it all live, you might as well attach the rest of the band name from the self-titled debut album. The debut, which could very well have topped my Album of the Year 2008, is in my opinion even a bit sharper than this follow-up, but Meshuggah's masterpiece Obzen cannot be ignored in this context.
Dictator was recorded back in 2012, but since Daron Malakian's main band System of a Down was touring extensively at the time and even speculating about new music, this recording remained in the studio. And that's lucky. In 2018, the album perhaps also feels more relevant than ever. As in the SOAD context, Malakian is not particularly subtle in his expression here either. Neither musically nor lyrically. The opening track Lives was also released as a single and the proceeds from the first week's sales were donated to the Hayastan All Armenian Fund, which aims to rebuild the economy of Armenia and support the prosperity of the region.
Unlike, for example, Serj Tankian (singer in SOAD), Malakian does not seem to need major deviations from the traditional soundscape that he has delivered since the late 1990s, with obvious traces of the glory days of thrash metal in a smooth mix with Middle Eastern tones. So if you miss System of a Down, Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway is an excellent substitute. The similarities between them are significantly greater than the differences.