SYSTEM OF A
DOWN - Toxicity (American/Columbia) (10/10)
The hardest thing for a band to do
is follow up a successful debut album. Your whole career builds
to that first release, you sometimes spend years honing those
songs, and then after the initial success (if you're lucky, of
course), you're expected to repeat the whole thing, usually in a
fraction of the amount of time it took to get to the first one.
...
In the case of SYSTEM OF A DOWN,
not only was their debut album a success (scanning nearly
800,000 copies in the US alone), but the band emerged as
frontrunners on the nu-metal scene, thanks to their highly
iconoclastic sound (blending everything from thrash to New Wave
to Eastern European influences) and politically-charged lyrics.
But SYSTEM took a long time to write and record their
second album, Toxicity, and the results are
nothing less than stupendous. In fact, Toxicity is
not only an easy contender for Metal Album Of The Year, but it
may prove to be one of the new
millenium's first authentic
masterpieces of the genre.
...
Many bands often say, when
promoting their latest album, that their new sound simply
improves upon the work that came before — i.e. "we made the
heavy stuff even heavier and the melodic stuff even more
melodic." In the case of Toxicity, this is exactly
what SYSTEM has done, and they've done it to perfection.
The opening trio of "Prison Song", "Needles", and
"Deer Dance" pummel the listener into submission with
massive riffs and Serj Tankian's confrontational vocal
style, while tracks like "Chop Suey", "Forrest"
and the profoundly moving album closer, "Aerials", bring
a deeper emotional resonance to the fore than perhaps any other
nu-metal act has dared do before.
...
The "wackier" tracks — "Shimmy"
and "Bounce" come to mind — may turn off some of the more
aggressive-minded listeners out there, but they still work well
within the context of this thoroughly engaging and unpredictable
band. The songwriting is right on the money in cut after catchy
cut — a rarity in this age of albums comprised of one or two
good tunes and fifty minutes of filler. There's less of the
Armenian flavorings here, but plenty of heaviness to satisfy
hardcore SYSTEM fans.
...
In an era where countless
soundalike bands are rolling off the corporate music industry
assembly line, SYSTEM OF A DOWN have established
themselves, with Toxicity, as one of the few bands
that people may still be talking about ten years from now. No
sophomore slump here.—Don Kaye
...
...
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