System Of A Down
Steal This Album!

THE REVIEW

If one thinks that this album, which I consider the best of System of a Down (which I will henceforth call S.O.A.D.), originated as a collection of the band's "leftovers," you are faced with a paradox. In fact, what I see as a collection of spectacular songs, full of aggression, grit, and quality, is actually a CD composed of previously discarded tracks or ones used outside of the recordings for the two previous CDs. Naturally, this album somewhat loses the S.O.A.D. style, that characteristic style of their eponymous first CD, the "Sugar" style, meaning heavy, fast, and cheerful songs, with a strong presence of growl (the scratched and dark screams), or like "Know" or "War"; for this reason, the first S.O.A.D. album is considered the best of the American band of Armenian origin by the most avid fans.

But Steal This Album does not completely distance itself from its predecessors: we can indeed find consistent lines, such as "Mr. Jack," which can easily be compared to both "Spiders" from the first album and "Aerials" from Toxicity, the second album that made them known to the general public, or like "Ego Brain," which, given its medieval-like guitar intro and the increase in sound heaviness, can remind one of "Suggestion." Naturally, as with every respectable album, Steal This Album also features noteworthy songs: it's true that in Toxicity we find singles like "Atwa," "Chop Suey," or "Toxicity" itself, it's also true that in S.O.A.D. there are songs like "Suite Pie" and "Spiders," but in my opinion, "Ego Brain," "Pictures," "Innervision," "I-E-A-I-A-I-O," and "Streamline" stand up to the comparison. Not to mention "Roulette," a true masterpiece, a special gem that, although it decidedly breaks the continuity of the sound of the previous tracks, is included with care, perfectly, without taking away from the other songs, without jarring in harmony, instead providing more than three minutes (3.21 to be precise, and what precision…) of calm and tranquility, leading to a dazzling finale. Another notable track on the album is "36," a handful of seconds of pure madness with a decidedly aggressive ending.

But what made me positively evaluate this album, beyond the quality of the individual songs, was the perfect sequence in which the tracks were arranged, the perfection and harmony with which the songs were inserted, a negative characteristic in my view of Toxicity, where the first 5 tracks are too similar and therefore clash with each other. But in Steal This Album each song gains value also thanks to the previous one and gives value to the next: an album therefore to be listened to in sequence and not shuffled (random sequence). From a technical standpoint, I emphasize the excellent intersection of the rhythms of the instruments with the voice, as in "Thetawaves" or "Nüguns," and the perfect harmony between the melody of the voice and that of the guitars, as in "Ego Brain." The idea of not presenting the lyrics but instead making them available for download from the web was also smart, as was the idea of cutting the songs differently to prevent copying, so anyone attempting illegal copies might find themselves with the first track missing the first ten seconds, and all tracks asymmetrical at the start on the CD; thus, you do what you can, although surely for an album to steal it is never enough.