System of a Down

I'm sitting here with my fellow kombucha mushroom people and we're listening to this album for the i guess 1000th time. Love every second of it

Very noise, not super impressed.

If ever there was an album that speaks for itself.

Yes, I get it. This was huge when it came out, and System of a Down were right there, riding the alt-/progressive-/nu-metal wave that Korn had initiated five years prior, at its apex. Thanks to the interplay between Daron Malakian’s guitar playing and Serj Tankian’s idiosyncratic vocal style (his staccato delivery with occasional growling outbursts), System of a Down created a unique sound, unmistakably their own. The thrash-metal-influenced riffing is mostly unforgiving and brutal; the lyrics, while often dadaistic or opaque, contain strong political statements — in short: the basics are killer. At its most weird, the record sounds like Frank Zappa fronting a hardcore band (Sugar).

However, even considering the relatively short run time (40-something minutes) for a late-1990s major-label release, one gets the feeling that they pull their signature feat just a little too often. Take Mezmerize, where System of a Down managed to fully diversify their songwriting palette - and were all the better for it. A solid debut (with a quality many bands would kill for), but still lacking that little something that makes a record truly special from front to back.

I started off thinking I might like this, but it got more annoying as it went on.

Het geluid gaat in de volle aanval. Het is snel en hard. Gitaren en geschreeuw voeren de boventoon. De band lijkt enerzijds hier vol voor te gaan, maar zoekt anderzijds allerlei manieren om dit voldoende te breken.

De nummers duren vaak niet heel lang en binnen de nummers wordt snel overgesprongen op relatieve rust en dan weer op het volledige leger van geluid. Ze houden graag een tel stilte voor of na een schreeuw. En af en toe zoeken ze een echte muzikale variatie (Soms hoeft dat echt niet, zoals de smurfenschreeuwzang in Suggestions).

Eigenlijk weet de band heel goed wat ze doet. Het zou de band helpen als ze dit soort concepten net iets duidelijker doorvoeren. In de breaks nog veel meer rust en meer serieuze zang daarbij bijvoorbeeld.

Dan krijg je zoiets als Chop Suey of Toxicity. Eigenlijk horen we via deze schijf nog slechts de potentie van de band.

Easily recognisable as System Of A Down. I really liked it at the start and the aggresion all throughout was great to listen to. However, listening to it gets a bit grating as the album goes on. I've figured I really like listening to System Of A Down, but only in shorter bursts. 57 minutes of it is just a bit too much for me.

The Good: self-titled album!
The Bad: Is it a play on words?
The Ugly: If it is a play on words, what is the point?

So yeah, SOAD… not my thing.

I hear screaming, I hear syncopated time-signatures, I hear avantgarde, I hear old school… I hear, but I can’t listen…

Don’t know if I should give it a 2 or a 3 just to be kind, what I do know is that this album will not be on my repeat list…

2* I guess

Not that I don't think this album should be on the list, but if we're only picking one SOAD album for the list, it should be Toxicity.

Anyways, I generally like System, just never really dug into them outside their big hits. This album is good, but I'm missing the melodies from their later stuff. And it feels more standard nu-metal compared to their later stuff, which I'm not as big as fan of.

Absolutely loved this album back in the day when it first came out. I've mellowed out some with age but boy does this ever still rock hard!

There's stuff I sort of like here. And stuff I really don't like at all. Averages out to a fine album, I guess.

Geez, why does this site feel that whenever i get it 1 star album, it has to give me a 5 star one to make up for it. System Of A Down is a very amazing album which has everything i love about nu-metal. It is fast, it is chaotic, it is incredibly weird and yet the guitar riffs are amazing, the vocals work absolutely perfectly with the songs with them being incredibly weird yet adding to the album's immense charm and it also went at the perfect length by having plenty of time for the songs to sink in but still not being overly long. This album is easily a top tier one if i do say so myself.
Best Song: Soil
Worst Song: Peephole

Including this over Toxicity is wild to me, since that one is definitely the band's magnum opus and most well-known album, but this album still absolutely rocks so I'm not that upset.

Oh my goodness, such a fun album. Well, when I focus on the lyrics perhaps fun isn't the right descriptor, but it gets me going every time. I was originally thinking there was a bit to much screaming for full marks, but I enjoyed too much not give it a five.

Hadn't listened to this one before, but I love their Toxicity album. Actually only got into it recently enough, as I enjoyed the singles at the time but never really dived into their albums. This was great though, not quite as good as Toxicity, but that doesn't seem to be in the book for some reason. Love the fusion of metal and middle eastern music, and Serj's many different singing styles are brilliant too.

I enjoyed most of this, although towards the end it all sounded a bit too samey. 3.5

Oh hell yes, love me some SOAD, great to do their first album as a whole.
I'm partial to later albums, but this one has a lot of elements that make SOAD so fun and refreshing vs. other bands in that era. This list better have Toxicity. 4* because it's not an all-bangers album for me.
Highlights: sugar, mind

What an absolute piece of shit record! Cringey in its shallow edginess, awkward tempo changes, horribly off-key singing (and clearly not trying to be). There is nothing avant-garde about this. The barked, faux-theatrical vocals "Sugar" is a real low point. This is the first time I've ever heard this band, but I've known the name of the band for a long time, and I've always just assumed it was a band of down syndrome members. Fuck. Please stop squeaking. "Shake your spear at Shakespeare." What an idiotic lyric! This is beta metal. Really awkward phrasings and lyrics throughout. IIRC, this band headlined Cringefest 1998.

Oh I did love this! Not heard this album specifically until now, and really enjoyed it! Musically brilliant, pointed in themes and... everything I loved Toxicity and Steal This Album for. :)

Perfect - and their next album is even better!