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Jul 30, 2018Dictator is everything fans might expect from Malakian and more; a complex, thoughtful and invigorating album that nods to his own personal history and simultaneously links to the wider, tumultuous landscape of America.
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Jul 30, 2018Standouts include the springy “Lives” (a celebration of Armenian genocide survivors that’s a solid Song of the Summer candidate), the scatological “Angry Guru,” the moody “Talkin’ Shit” (one of many songs with drug references) and the disco-thrash closer “Assimilate.” If it had Serj Tankian and the other System members on it, Dictator could be the album so many have wanted.
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Jul 30, 2018Dictator is a strong release that touches on a lot of the elements of System of A Down's final albums without too many of the quirky moments from those records. Still, it comes across as the comeback record that could have been huge but never happened.
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Kerrang!Jul 30, 2018A record that is surprisingly flat and unremarkable. [21 Jul 2018, p.55]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 16
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Mixed: 2 out of 16
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Negative: 1 out of 16
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Nov 3, 2018
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May 25, 2023This album is proof of how successful and iconic Daron Malakian is on his own.
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Jan 30, 2022