System of a Down

SOAD was a major blind spot for me prior to this. Of course I knew Chop Suey, but I didn’t know a single other song. This album was awesome. I like the changing dynamics with softer sections coming right before explosions of aggression. The vocals occasionally reminded me of the Dead Kennedys taken to the next extreme. Favorites were Suite-Pee, Sugar, Spiders, Soil, and Peephole.

I think it was a fun listen and I would come back to this again. 7/10

This is a great album that has been lumped in with the rest of late-90s/early-00s Nu-Metal.

SOAD is an unironically great band.

There’s plenty to really like on this album. They’re an interesting band full of energy and bite, and the whole album is frantic and kind of insane. However it's also quite melodic in places, and they create quite a lot of atmosphere with those guitars, which I really dig.

This is one of those bands that I just haven’t really listened to since I was a teenager, but also one that upon revisiting I’ve realised I really enjoy. I think I need to make more of a conscious effort to dig back into some of this stuff because I had a blast.

4.5 rounded down.

I've always thought the religious commentary and the shouty, crustier material the weakest aspects of this group. That's pretty much the vast majority of this record. I will echo thousands of others and say Toxicity should have been the representative album for SOAD. The sound gets stale early, the production has aged poorly, the edginess is not offset like on their later records (or even on Serj's underrated solo projects). Bad record. Why do people like "Sugar" so much? God that song is annoying as fuck

Unapologetically violent, crude, and insane. Just the way mama likes it.

Обʼєктивно веселий і один з найбільш оригінальних та цікавих альбомів в жанрі. Так, політичну позицію СОАД залишимо за дужками.

На однойменному альбомі вони ще не вийшли на пік сонграйтінга (токсісіті), але вже показали все що робило їх унікальними і впізнаванами. Не думаю що можна переплутати СОАД з кимось іншим.
Не знаю, я б навіть 4 поставив.

Never really listened much to System of a Down but wow this was good!!

4⭐️

Nice debut and a good taste of what to come from SOAD. However this is probably their weakest album overall, so it's hard to justify a higher rating.

It's got a few riffs for sure, but they are FAR overshadowed by the awkward changes and over-the-top cringy vocals. I think I was too old for nü.

This is quite a good album. There are some great moments when they break away from their core sound.

Why anyone would want to hear this album ahead of Toxicity defeats me. That’s a 4 or 5 star album - and I hate my metal. Admittedly SOAD have more about them than their genre peers. Broader subject matter, a sense of humour, light and shade.

4.31

In addition to not being a huge metalhead, I wasn't looking forward to this because my sister owned *Toxicity* around the time it came out and little ten-year-old me was *not* a fan. Any time I've heard them in the wild over the last 25 years or so has not convinced me to reassess them. But man, even though it's still not *totally* my bag from a stylistic standpoint, I think there is a **lot** of cool shit here. Although I always recognized Tankian's absurd vocal talent, I've never subjectively cared for his voice much, but this record kind of made me a believer. It seems like he is to metal what McCartney is to pop/rock or Biggie and Kendrick are to hip-hop; his ability to shift between tones and styles is extremely impressive and, more often than not, surprisingly tasteful. I'm still not huge on his more operatic approach ("Spiders" is the only main culprit on this record), and again, the overall genre he's working in only does *so* much for me, but I'm walking away with much more appreciation for him than I ever would have anticipated.

I just find this to be a lot more interesting than certain other sub-genres of metal. Tankian's socially conscious poetry is a hell of a lot more appealing to me than overplayed Satanic tropes and the Dungeons and Dragons on Broadway shit that a lot of metal culls from. The band decisively executes some pretty brutal riffage, but rather than relying on superfluous double kick-drum fills or eye-rolling pinch harmonic wankery, they rely on...*gasp!*...dynamics and...*GASP!*...genuinely interesting musicality. They are so clearly better than most other "nu-metal" bands of the time in every way. If I'm being honest with myself, I have to cap my subjective enjoyment of this at a high 3 stars for now, but I genuinely think this may grow on me yet.

3/5

Look, I get why people like this but it's not for me. All a bit adolescent and irritating.

That aside, you can't stop me getting my teenage dirtbag on to Spiders.

THAT was wild.
Mystical surrealistic angry, complex scenarios of abuse, war, dreaming, outrage, recent and ancient history. Plenty of quiet breakdowns that explode for your moshing pleasure. Good musicians, insane vocals both literally and figuratively.

less theatrical than their subsequent releases, and dare i say more approachable despite the harshness. 4.5

System Of A Down is the least tiresome nu metal band out there, but it's still a LOT of work to listen to it whole album at once instead of adding tracks here and there to large playlists.

If Toxicity is the polished masterpiece, this self-titled debut is the raw, unhinged prototype. It's an absolute experience as the stop-start tempos and thrash-influenced riffs create a unique, nervous ball of energy. Serj Tankian is the star of the show here, switching seamlessly between growling and falsetto operatic singing and his lyrics balance real heavy political themes (war and the Armenian genocide) with absurdity and Dadaist humor. Standout tracks are "Sugar", "Spiders", "Soil", and "War?"

I really should like this band more than I do, given all the various elements of their sound and their political prerogative, but I just find the singer obnoxious. “Spiders” is kind of a cool track though. “P.L.U.C.K.” is okay too.

Heres the thing, this has all the elements of music that I truly love. Its melodic where it needs to be, gutteral where it needs to be, ever changing progressive structures and yet..... Ill just say it, the vocals kill this for me.

2.75 just because I wouldnt ever jump up to turn it off but I also would never play it purposely, its good just not something that makes me really WANT to listen to it.