Toxicity --- System of a Down --- 2001 (American)
Something concerns me about this band. Wiki lists them as a "rock" band, not a "metal" band, but I believe they're accepted as part of the nu-metal scene? I don't know; like so many bands here this is my first encounter with SOAD, so forgive me if I'm introducing a band who should not be included, but I'm going on popular opinion, so let's see how this pans out.
Choppy guitar chords that start and stop, a whispered vocal, pauses, silence, more guitars then the melody kicks in properly as "Prison song" starts, with a vocal that sounds more like something out of a reggae song to be honest. Okay it's heavy but is it metal? Well, apparently SOAD are supposed to utilise an awful lot of different influences so let's not discount them right away. It slows down in the middle and we get some gratuitous growls while vocalist Serj Tankian carries on. It's energetic, it's almost funny in places. Not too sure if I'm meant to take this seriously? Anyhoo, next track is "Needles", with a big heavy drumbeat and churning guitars, vocal is sort of spoken/shouted almost in a punk fashion, then "Deer dance" has the reggae-ish vocal back, tripping along nicely then Tankian starts shouting again.
Is this metal? I still don't know. I wouldn't categorise it as such, personally. Not so far anyway. "Jet pilot" just flies along at Mach II, then slows down into an almost traditional format, like a folk song in arabic or something, then flies off again. SOAD seem to relish mixing different styles and genres in even one song, which to my mind makes it hard to decide whether or not you like them. Things don't change really until "Chop suey!" has a nice introspective guitar line, but then that becomes a harder one and the vocal is another rapid-fire delivery for part of the song, dropping back on soft piano to an almost balladic style before returning to the original delivery. Quite annoying really.
There's a sense of the innate silliness of some of the vocal performances of The Divine Comedy in "Bounce" and then a rising, sort of intense vocal in "Forest", while "ATWA" is kind of a mess with Tankian snarling
"You don't care/ How I feel!" Sort of sums up my mindset on this album, I have to say. I think I'd rather listen to some doom metal. Or even black metal. Yeah. Even Venom would be preferable to this. Well, might be a close run thing. I really don't like this. SOAD are trying to be too clever, too wacky and it's as I said already very annoying. The title track runs on a nice chimy slow guitar run and a decent vocal but of course, as we'd expect by now, that soon gets kicked in the nuts as the rowdy shout breaks out and the guitars and drums go crazy. Sigh. At this point, heard it all before guys and it's not innovative or funny any more.
For me, SOAD doesn't stand for System Of A Down, it means Settle On A Direction! They seem to be constantly flying off at tangents, mixing rhythms, melodies and genres so much that their music just comes across as a confused, haphazard mish-mash, as if they're just trying ideas out to see how they work. Personally, I feel they don't more often than they do. It's exhausting just trying to keep up with the constant changes. There's some nice guitar work in "Psycho", and the closer "Aerials" has finally settled down into a decent tune; it's a pity they didn't just concentrate on playing to their strengths on this album, instead of just jumping around all over the place like a bunch of Tasmanian Devils on crack. By now though I really couldn't care less. Time to write the outro and forget all about this band.
TRACKLISTING
1. Prison songs
2. Needles
3. Deer dance
4. Jet pilot
5. X
6. Chop Suey!
7. Bounce
8. Forest
9. ATWA
10. Science
11. Shimmy
12. Toxicity
13. Psycho
14. Aerials
It's been said that it's hard to pigeonhole SOAD and I can see why. They really don't seem to be able to settle on one genre, musical style or idea and stick to it. Diversity is all well and good, but not in the same song! It's just too much of an effort to try to sort it all out, and really it is sad because right at the end of the album when they calm down and start playing and singing like a "normal" band, they do very well. But by then I'm already on the bus home and have missed the last few tracks of the encore.
Not a gig I'll be looking at ever returning to. As for the original question I posed at the outset: are System Of A Down metal? I still sure as hell don't know, however now I also don't care.
Read more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_a_Down