System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian’s side project Scars on Broadway (featuring a rotating cast of musicians and the six-stringer himself at the helm) released its second album Dictator in July 2018, and now a dark neon nightmarish video has arrived to complement the LP’s fifth track “Guns Are Loaded.”
The song’s sinister, pained undertones are echoed in the skull and Halloween mask horror themes entwined with a performance by the group as they’re shrouded in mostly shadow, lit only in rich but eerie pink. Malakian’s glowing eyes and a melting screen effect highlight the trancelike, cyclical riffs that swirl underneath the frontman’s musings on abuse and broken homes. Shots of the singer’s face peering out of pure blackness show him grimacing through gritted teeth while mouthing the pained words, adding a Hitchcockian air to the already grim scene.
The short was the band’s third collaboration with renowned director Greg Watermann, whose eclectic work in music videos includes artists from Pit Bull and Christian Aguilera to System of a Down singer Serj Tankian’s solo work, as well as SOAD themselves.
Dictator is available now at this location, and catch Scars on Broadway during their upcoming five-date West Coast tour at one of the following locations.
03/03 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
03/04 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
03/06 – San Francisco, CA @ Slim’s
03/07 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
03/08 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
