System Of A Down
Toxicity
Alternativ-Metal, Crossover. Black Vinyl. 2001

SOAD (System Of A Down) wwas founded in 1995. Toxicity is their second album and is clearly political. I often talk about intelligent music and usually mean prog rock. System Of A Down's music and lyrics are brutal, revealing, gentle, critical, angry, cold, emotional. Compressed into songs that are no longer than 4 minutes long on Toxicity. Always sung with the right voice by Serj Tankian. John Dolmayan treats his drums just the same. Bass (Shavo Odadjian) and guitar/vocals (Daron Malakian) drive things along. The mixture of short, quiet passages explodes into heavy sections without warning. There is almost always criticism of the USA. System Of A Down. Metal reimagined.

Toxicity was produced at Cello Studio, Hollywood by Rick Rubin and Daron Malakian. Serj Tankian was co-producer and the only guest musician was Arto Tunçboyacıyan.

If you don't know SOAD, you'll get the right impression from the first song. "Prison Song" starts aggressively and is clearly critical of the US prison system. "They try to build a prison, for you and me to live in." The song can be interpreted as the essence of the whole album. "Needles" is pure power in 03:13 and deals with drug abuse. "Deer Dance" could cut a fine figure on any prog album. Here SOAD takes a stand against police violence against peaceful demonstrators. "Pushing little children with their fully-automatics, They like to push the weak around." The lyrics become more psychedelic in "Jet Pilot", when a horse dreams of flying over the Bay of Los Angeles. "X" deals with overpopulation. "Chop Suey" refers to the last seven words of Jesus shortly before he died. It's about how differently society views the deceased depending on how they died. In "Bounce", Serj Tankian criticizes group sex. “Forrest” parodies the Bible and organized religions in general.

"ATWA" criticizes that Charles Manson did not have a fair trial and is in prison for the wrong reasons. I do not share this opinion. "Toxicity" deals with ADHD, while "Psycho" is about coked-up groupies. "Aerials" describes what it feels like to feel lost in a materialistic society. At the same time, the song is different in style than the rest of the album. This also applies to "Arto", which deals with the Armenian genocide of 1915.

Overall, "Toxicity" was received very positively and sold more than 12 million copies. My conclusion is positive; I like the criticism of existing problems in our society, the crisp lyrics and song structures. Metal has evolved and System Of A Down contributed to this. An entertaining album that should be in every collection.

The photos are all from my LP. The rights to all motifs, logos, texts and fonts that can be seen in the photos are of course owned by the copyright holder.