I wasn't a huge fan of Mesmerize, too many silly/quirky songs and too much Daron on lead vocals when Serj is one of the best singers around today. I liked it but whenever I put on Toxicity or the first album they blew it totally out of the water. I found the same thing when I saw them live, it was almost like a religious experience seeing them do Chop Suey with 20,000 singing in unison. Mesmerize lacked that passion for me with the exception of BYOB, Question and Sad Statue. The last song which I forget the name of was good but I wish Serj had sang it. Some of the fun songs were good and that element has always been there but there were too many.

I really like the new one though, Serj takes the lead on more songs and in the main there are more powerful emotional songs. I absolutely love Attack, Dreaming, Kill Rock 'N Roll, Tentative (early favourite) and Holy Mountains and like most of the others. I do miss some of the rants though like 'Don't you realize that evil lives in the mother****ing skin' and 'They're trying to build a prison' etc. Old albums aside though this is a great album and a worthy addition to your record collection.