Review by SilentScream213 for System of a Down - Toxicity (2001)

One of my first albums. I grew up with this thing, it was part of my formative years in middle into high school. Most of the songs evoke memories of bus rides, of seeing the same friend group every day, of walking around town with nothing to do. Actually, Toxicity was one of the albums my friends and I could agree upon; I was pretty strictly into 80’s and 90’s Metal at the time, whereas they were much more Deathcore modern scene kids, but Toxicity, we could agree, was awesome.

That’s not to say I am blinded by nostalgia; in fact, I will go on record to say this album is vastly overrated. One of the main reasons being its inconsistency. It’s got some amazing highlights that even people without a clue or care about this band can enjoy (Chop Suey!, Aerials). The title track has some of the most iconic drumming in the history of music. But it’s got just as many tracks that fall into… “filler” seems a bit too harsh, because every track is very unique and memorable, but just… not as good territory? They aren’t nearly bad songs, but I don’t have much desire to revisit “Prison Song” or “Jet Pilot” again.

The songwriting on this album is really interesting. Could never say for a second that a single moment of this album is boring. And each song is absolutely bursting with character. The amount of personality oozing from each band member is cartoonlike in its audacity. Yet at the same time, some of the compositional choices are just odd. I mean, purposefully so, but that doesn’t make them good. Some of the jerky or disjointed start-stop tactics or odd mood shifts sound “quirky for the sake of being quirky” and at worst pull me from the enjoyment of a song. The aforementioned “Prison Song” as well as “Needles” are guilty of this, with their calmer, catchier sections really not meshing well with the heavier ones. “ATWA” on the other hand, averts this magnificently, but there’s a reason; the song stays consistent in mood, detailing the thoughts of a paranoid maniac tormented by their own thoughts, and so the somber, softer sections exploding into heavy dissonance make sense thematically and compliment each other perfectly.

SoaD was super influential as a band, and this was far and away their most influential and iconic album. History has also been very kind to it, whereas there was a time when “trve” or “kvlt” metalheads disavowed it, it’s almost universally beloved now. Too much so, in my opinion. An album as quirky and inconsistent as this seems out of place holding accolades such as… I dunno, anywhere near the top 10 Metal albums of all time? It’s a great album, but this is one I’d rather reach for the highlights and not play the whole thing front to back for another 10 years.