![]() At this point in their career, System knew how to write spectacular songs, but they hadn't yet mastered the album format. At 40 minutes, it's only one track's length shorter than Toxicity but it feels longer, dragging during its back-half when the incendiary push-pull of Patton-gone-grindcore starts to lose its edge and blur together. Is this a perfect album, though? Musically speaking, no. While the band's politics got muddied by sophomoric humor and nonsensical language on later releases, Tankian was crooning, shrieking and growling about some serious fucking shit on this album, delivering righteous sermons on genocide, religious extremism and other human moral failings, while his bandmate's playing teetered on the precipe of madness without ever falling over the edge. The open-hand cover (a nod to anti-fascist German protest art) is a brilliant distillation of SOAD's whole vibe, and songs like "Suite-Pee," "Spiders" and "Sugar" are three of the best they've ever released. System of a Down's self-titled debut is one of the nu-metal era's most iconic albums. "Cigaro" and "This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm on This Song" fail to match the gut-punching intensity of System's older, heavier songs, and both of those - along with the borderline cringey "Violent Pornography" - are plagued by nonsensical and/or desperately edgy lyrics.įortunately, in most every way that Mezmerize fails, its companion piece succeeds. Closer "Lost in Hollywood" is a haunting meditation on fame, but its sibling track, "Old School Hollywood," fumbles with instantly dated synths and grating vocoder. "Revenga" and "Sad Statue" are late-career highlights that flex their melodic muscles, and the klezmer chaos of "Radio/Video" is a ton of fun, if not a little silly. Of course, "B.Y.O.B" is one of the band's biggest and, no matter how many times you've heard it, endlessly enjoyable songs. Forged in the heat of intra-band tension between Tankian and his bandmates, the record saw Malakian taking on way more singing duties, making System's sound significantly more dynamic - which could be both a strength and a weakness. ![]() The first half of System of a Down's quasi-double-album has some of their most beloved material on it, but as a full body of work, there's a lot to be desired here.
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