SYSTEM OF A DOWN — Toxicity (review)

SYSTEM OF A DOWN — Toxicity album cover Album · 2001 · Alternative Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Pekka
I had heard a few songs from their debut by the time Toxicity came out, but as for hundreds of thousands of other people, it was Chop Suey! from this album that got me hooked on System of a Down. Mad start-stop rhythms, guitar picked like a balalaika, a powerful vocal performance and the seamless slide from aggressive metal to an emotional piano-flavored finale make this one a true modern metal classic.

But here it's just a song among the others. With their second album SoaD got faster and heavier than before in songs like Jet Pilot and Bounce, and elsewhere more impressively emotional like in ATWA and the brilliant closer Aerials. And in between we get several brilliant modern metal masterworks like Prison Song, Deer Dance, Forest and Psycho.

The little that Toxicity loses to its predecessor in out of control reckless insanity, it gains in a more organized attack, more streamlined (I'm not necessarily saying better) production and its extremes being spread more apart. A killer follower for a killer album.
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