System Of A Down
Toxicity

Premise: do not be fooled by the length of the review, please read it, I'll even pay you tomorrow (today I'm broke).

Impressive, isn't it? This is an album that changed my life. I'm not kidding. Very (very) likely, very few or maybe none will stop to read this of mine, considering it's too difficult to attract the public with the title of an album on which practically everything has already been said (and more). I myself have betrayed my personal ethics of NEVER WRITING A REVIEW THAT ALREADY EXISTS!! Damn, I held back from redoing the Opeth one, the Neurosis one, the Katatonia one, the Labyrinth one, the Darkthrone one, the Piano Magic ones, and so on endlessly… But I MUST do it for an album that literally changed my way of approaching music. One of the few, I assure you, that I listened to even 10 times a day without getting tired, four years ago, and that I still consider worthy of my interest, when usually all the albums I "overindulged in" in the past rest for very long times between listens (I'd like to see you with more than 900 CDs trying to listen to them all when you don't have a free minute to do it).

That's why I don't want to be banal. I don't want to talk to you about how the album sounds, with its Armenian tribal pieces, this and that, here and there, la-di-da. What's the point? You probably already know all of that. I don't think it's possible for a regular music lover browsing the internet to have not already visited a page with a review of this album. And after all, it has already been said in other reviews on this very site. In this case, success speaks for itself (those rare times when critics and audiences agree, and true art reaches everyone). No, my friends, no. I want to talk about a perhaps more useful topic: what I felt listening to this album. What I felt 4 years ago, what I feel to this day. Read, if you find it interesting/fun: otherwise just click, the page disappears, and we're friends as before. But I wouldn't recommend doing that.

Let's start from a point: I am in need of a psychoanalyst. I even wrote it in my bio, it must be true. Here's an example: the dear SOAD covered the theme of "The Legend Of Zelda," probably the video game I'm most attached to. One day I read the manga, with Saria, Link, and company, then SOAD comes to mind, and I feel the urge to play "Toxicity" again after so long to see what I feel, now that I understand a bit more about music. Goodness me, I thought. Or damn, if you prefer. After 4 years, the feeling has not only remained the same, but perhaps it has become even stronger. I saw my hair stand on end to the arpeggio of "The Prison Song." Accentuated by the fact that I was thinking of Zelda.

I have a doubt, does this only happen to me? Have you ever found yourself enjoying a band more after hearing them cover a song? I have, several times. For instance, I really started to love Poison The Well only after listening to their cover of "Today" by the Pumpkins. So imagine in this case, where the cover was of a theme from a video game I loved. Here's my (stupid, I admit) idea: listening to a band while they're not playing their own music prepares you spiritually for when the time comes to listen to them seriously. It really puts you in the mindset of the band. I know I'm not very clear, but forgive me, I really can't explain this feeling. Listening to a song by System while first thinking of Zelda and then one of their political lyrics (for example) is something that excites me, I swear. First the joke, then it's serious. It's like seeing the innocent boy from "Shining" when you already know the father will chase him with an axe. Damn Freud, where have you gone? Help me. There I am on the couch while my player caresses "Toxicity." "The Prison Song." Violent and violated riffs, stopped for what seems an interminable time, then repeated. Psychotic voice. Computerized voice condemnations on the U.S. prison system, and then Serj goes crazy. And then that arpeggio, my God, that arpeggio. Now I know what chills are. As soon as I hear "They try to build a prison… for you and me! Oooh baby… you and me!” followed by Serj’s growl (it fits!), I feel I C H I L L. Another example. The tribal pieces in "Deer Dance." Serj's voice in "X" is nothing short of genius. With a guitar riff that is simplicity made riff, and precisely because of that, emotional. The thrash slowdowns of "Atwa" and the psychotic accelerations of "Shimmy." The chorus of "Forest," goosebump-inducing. The oriental solo in "Psycho," a song with little or no oriental essence, dealing with groupies. The overlapping voice in "Aerials" with its sulfurous atmosphere, a metal anthem from 4 oppressed Armenians, just like the magnificent title track, the fateful track 12, which is the quintessential SOAD ballad.
And finally, her, the queen: "Chop Suey!". But how do you describe it? It's genius from the title itself (it's the name of a dish). An acoustic guitar intro that floods like a river into a sudden electric wall. Lyrics shot like a machine gun at the listener while a whisper bewilders and stuns. Slowdown, new outburst. But it's all a pretext to culminate in an artistic finale, a crescendo of choirs, of "when angels deserve to die”, entwining voices enveloping, piano notes that caress the soul.

But how do they do it, damn it. How did they come up with such ideas? What's astounding is how so many ideas, light years apart, assemble into a compact, COHERENT, yet monstrously heterogeneous proposal. Uncertainty. Schizophrenia. Psychosis. Melancholy. Sadness. Joy. Hope. Anger. Hatred. Love. This music is true human soul. The truth is this: "Toxicity" is an album entirely created from details, which lives and is based on them. Its mystical power that makes it so fascinating lies in capturing all the particular aspects that make it up, or rather, build it. There's nothing, I mean nothing, I really mean absolutely nothing nothing nothing in this album that isn't there for a specific reason. Nothing. Not a riff, not a chorus, not a melody, not a solo, not an empty space (pause), not a microscopic piece of voice. "Toxicity" is a masterpiece because it consists of so many small (big) masterpieces, all the individual seconds that pass on the display of your player while you listen. A necessary pedestal in the history of what we would define as post-metal. An essential classic. Unrepeatable. Unique. Or rather: unique. Unique are the 4 Armenians. Unique are those small, unrepeatable, wonderful seconds.