System of a Down may be on hiatus, but its sound isn't thanks to frontman Serj Tankian. "Elect the Dead," his first full-length solo effort, boasts the same kind of arty arrangements and cascading dynamics as SOAD's ouvre, a sign that while guitarist Daron Malakian is often considered the band's mad genius, Tankian's elastic, expressive vocals are as integral to its character. "Empty Walls" charges out at full metallic speed, then pulls back and maintains that course throughout the song's three minutes and 50 seconds. That pattern becomes Tankian's stock in trade here, from the staccato attack and Eastern European flavors of "The Unthinking Majority" to the Meat Loaf-style bombast of "Money" and the jazz-inflected rumble of "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." At one point, Tankian claims, "We are the cause of a world that's gone wrong." On "Elect the Dead," however, he makes it sound pretty right.—Gary Graff