Toxicity

Reviewed by:
David Peisner

Bringing political righteousness and prog-rock pomposity to the mook-metal revolution is like hiring Scott Baio and Suzanne Somers to star in America’s Sweethearts II—adding more crap to the pile rarely makes it smell better. So it’s something of a surprise that System of A Down’s second album works as well as it does. Then again, maybe it makes sense. Instead of listening to guys with goatees wail about how they were always picked last for dodge ball, we get guys with goatees doing it for more than just karmic revenge and a little nookie. As testosterone-heavy guitar riffs and wild, jagged rhythms propel Toxicity along in epileptic fits and starts, dark, soaring melodies weave in and out of the aural assault, casting System as an odd cross between Rush, Rage Against The Machine, and Slayer. In places (particularly the ill-conceived “Prison Song”), their ambition does them in, but more often than not, System strike the right balance between high-minded art and balls-to-the-wall rock.

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