The second in System Of A Down's projected 2005 two-album set picks up where its predecessor Mezmerize left off, melding together bug-eyed political rage, complex prog-metal, and incomprehensible lyrical absurdities and packaging them all together in one of the ugliest sleeves ever seen in Christendom. Mind you, to be aesthetically pleasing is not System's way: "She's On Heroin" and "Stealing Society" are lurid snapshots of society at its most grotesque, schizophrenic canvases of thrash metal and dizzying Cossack rhythms as warped and twisted as the drug addicts and insane dictators they inevitably depict. A bizarre highlight comes in the shape of "Victim Of Obscenity", where frontman Serj Tankian chants "Banana banana banana terracotta/ Banana terracotta pie". As with Mezmerize, Hypnotize finds guitarist Daron Malakian handling many of the vocal duties: he takes the lead on "Kill Rock'n'Roll", declaring "I felt like the biggest asshole/When I killed your rock'n'roll", and again on the uncharacteristically slow, emotive "Lonely Day". If anything, though, this is a heavier, more bewildering work than its predecessor. An album to sort out the men from the boys - Louis Pattison (Review copyright Amazon.co.uk)