Following System of a Down's hiatus in May 2006, guitarist Daron Malakian announced his new project — Scars on Broadway — a band which would include System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan and himself. Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians, for a period of nine months in 2007 the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions under Malakian’s direction, at his home studio and Sunset Sound; with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals. The band begin recording their debut albumin September 2007. On what direction his album will take, Daron Malakian states:
"It will probably be something very heavy mixed in with traditional Armenian and thrash, death, doom, black and dark metal influences. When, or even if, the music comes out, it will still be structured, just like System of a Down's music is."
Malakian stated the sound will be influenced by classic rock such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Yes, Neil Young, and Roxy Music, shifting his songwriting away from System of a Down's "frazzled metal" to more "song-based" work. "I don't feel we're the mosh-pit band," says Malakian. "That's just where I'm comfortable as a writer right now." On May 2, 2008, the album was announced. A week later, the band was signed to Interscope Records. The band released "They Say" as their first airplay single on March 28. The music video for the track was released on June 27. A second single, "World Long Gone", was released on September 8, featured a music video directed by filmmaker Joel Schumacher.
Reception
Reviews for the album were generally positive, with the album holding a score of 73/100 on Metacritic. However, several reviewers were critical of the lyrics. The BBCs Al Fox gave the album a negative review, stating "It's tough to write a review so overwhelmingly negative in response to somebody’s heartfelt outpourings but this kind of old-school rock is tired, worn out, and has as little relevance to today's world as a classical string quartet playing the millionth version of a 300-year-old concerto." Similarly, Consequence of Sound gave the album a "D" rating, stating "Scars On Broadway is most definitely worth hearing – if you’re a die-hard fan of Malakian’s vocals. It’s sadly an overall novelty work, with lyrics that unfortunately toe the line of absolute absurdity in some cases". Rolling Stone, in a 3.5 out of 5 review, stating "as Scars on Broadway, Malakian shaves System's punk-dervish and metallic-vengeance extremes into straight-on rock glazed with New Wave keyboards and impish-angel harmonies. It is a cleverly barbed normality." Allmusic, also giving the album 3.5 out of 5 stars, praised the album's instrumentals but criticized the lyrics. Billboard.coms Gary Graff stated of the album "Malakian and SOAD drummer John Dolmayan have indeed brought something new for their fans to love—and perhaps even for non-fans as well, given the more direct and accessible nature of Scars' music. The duo still delves into SOAD-style idiosyncracies via the sonic tumult and machine-gun dynamics of such tracks as "Serious," "Exploding/ Reloading," "Chemicals" and "World Gone Long," but Scars is just as apt to delve into the poppier melodicism of "Funny" and "Insane," the full-on funk of "Enemy" or the metallic muscle of "Stoner Hate."
