If you liked the Mezmerize then you'll most definitely like this one - it's radtastic and full of neato, mind-bending guitar riffs, lose-your-mind-in-the-confusion-choruses, and shit with the devil vocals. To be honest, this album is a little less mastodon compared to the last one. That's why this review has taken so long for me to cough up. Yes, it's a great album that'll put a smile on any socially aware person who also digs the metal edgy stuff, but I found myself losing steam the more I listened. I like the fact that these guys are pretty much a mainstream band, yet have the balls to say anything they damn well please. For example, "Selling ass for heroin" takes me back to a dark time in Nowheresville, Utah when I had to shank some bitch for poaching my loaf. (Pardon, the street talk, but you've gotta watch your back in the twisted squalor of Utah's urban wasteland.)

"I felt like the biggest asshole, when I killed your rock n' roll," is a nice little rhyme and so forth, but it's a bit much. Personally, I doubt they killed my rock n' roll - maybe they just waited 'til it passed out, kicked it in the head and stole its wallet. Yeah I'm sure these guys are rich by now. Ooh and looky here, you might remember the opening track on their first spell-binding opus of the year Mezmerize - "Soldier Song?" Well as it turns out, it was merely an intro. The rest of the song pops up as the glorious finale on this here Hypnotize. Thank the good Lord the world can finally start to spin again. (What a relief, I was starting to sweat it - I thought maybe I was coming down with a touch of rabies). You gotta hand it to 'em - those freaky looking fucks can be terribly clever.

With all this political propaganda crammed down our throats, it makes me wonder if this music is even making a dent in the great melon of the masses - for change or revolution or such bullshit. One of the Propaghandhi guys said something along the lines of all this mainstream political-core being a big waste of time, stating: "That would be like trying to take apart the Master's machine with the Master's tools." Ouch, that hurts, but he does make a point. Come on people snap out of it. Maybe all this "hate everything warfare against the Man" ultra-political jun-jun might spark a flicker of free-form thought in some younger folks, but as long as bros like Fat Mike are scrambling for photo ops with John Kerry…well then, we're all sold down the river, we're all fucked.

But enough of that baloney, this album and it's sister are super-dooper. Combine peyote-inspired artwork with the great sasquatch of the studio, Rick Rubin, and the freaky, forty-something foursome (SOAD) and you wind up with something extraordinary. My friend breaks the "System" down as follows: "chanting intro, fast part, 2-step part, slowed down drum part with chant, chug-chug spinkick breakdown, fast part, fast part - the end." That's a little more clarity on this festering heap of brilliant sonic shit. Hey Adam, remember when Ed drank all that Hypnotique liquor in Vegas and was totally shit-faced…that's when he comes up with these quantum theories. Another tortured genius laboring in obscurity. Here's to you Ed you silly brilliant bastard.