Serj Tankian’s debut album was a pretty strong collection of songs which were not a million miles away from the sound of his previous band System of a Down. With his second studio album, 2010’s Imperfect Harmonies, Serj has made more of a departure from that sound and an exploring of new styles.

The three most distinctive things about Imperfect Harmonies over the rest of Serj’s output are that the drumming for the album is mostly electronic sounding, that the vocals are multi-tracked to a greater extent than ever before and that the vast majority of the album is string laden and orchestral sounding.

Other small changes include the shift from mostly political lyrics with a few existential topics to mostly existential lyrics with a few political numbers.

‘Beatus,’ is a good example of this album’s new style and unique use of the electronic aspects. Over a slow acoustic guitar and piano number an unusual beat flutters along until the chorus mixes female backing vocals and flutes with the existing music to create a new section, until a cinema soundtrack sounding middle eight that is slightly reminiscent of Gun’s N Roses’ ‘Madagascar’ with its use of strings and samples over slightly industrial music.

Overall; The album at the end of the day and looking past all the changes is still a varied, mostly up-tempo and creative rock/metal album from an excellent songwriter and vocalist and that is all you can fairly expect.

If you like Serj’s previous work this is different but his creativity and distinctive voice ought to be enough to ease the transition. Its a little different but its still very good.