Not A Jadded Old Fart
Chris White | Houston, Tx USA | 12/16/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I wasn't gonna write a review(is it necessary, this album is ground zero for what metal should be)until I saw a review that basically says this album is great if you are 15.F**K YOU TOO!!! I'll have you know from the opinion of someone pushing 30 that this album made me realize that not only was metal relevant but vital to our world.I used to be a full on metalhead then the 90s happened and I realized life is too short to swell up your chest with bravado 24/7 and that's all metal was about until Korn came along, but Korn is too imature and trendy for me to champion them. I'll give them their proper respect for breaking new ground but alot of their stuff is boring and drawn out. Then System Of A Down Came along and showed me that you can channel aggression through metal and produce somthing very explosive. I thought Rollins was the only one who knew how to channel aggression properly. System Of A Dowm schooled him. System Of A Down schooled us all. Metal will never be the same, and as long as they countinue to make records, they will be the standard that everyone that has come out after them will be measured against. WAR? is so prophetic, it's scary. Ther is no filler on this album. From Daron's opening harmonic riff to Serj's singing of the word "Down" at the end it's hard to catch your breath or blink and more importantly it's not necessary."
Ode to Rock
Sir Adam of Scots | (please remember to vote!!) | 12/01/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is an album that I have been wearing out for years. It is thrashing, insightful, mysterious and never gets old.
System of a Down is without a doubt my favorite Rock band. No doubt, without question. They wreak of aptitude, even as displayed in this their debut album.
If you want an indepth view into each of these songs, it would literally take me thousands of words spread across a hundred pages, so I will sum up my avidity into a breviloquent format.
Frankly that can only happen if I give you an overall sense of the experience of listening to this album an incalculable amount of times. It is an emotional piece of work, displaying a band (labeled by and kicking off the genre of Nümetal, supposedly) which is beginning to find a focus on later greatness. With the release of Mezmerize/Hypnotize, it is highly recommended that you go back to this beginning to understand their foundations. Though their sound may not of been as authentically ethnic as newer work, it still rocks.
Spiders is in my mind (no pun) the crowning achievement of this album in the realm of haunting pulses and envelopment. Suite-Pee, though labeled with a name in no way associated with the song - as many are, is a bold throw against the belief that Christ was a woman. Ddevil is a sarcastic snarl at Satan, amazingly enough. The verses tell about the horrible "photographic relapse, of a people feeding frenzy" then the acerbic line "the devil is so lovely." The exhibition of Good and Evil is still lingering in their music today. SUGAR gives the bouncing breakout song which had youngin's banging their head with glee. It tells, in a roundabout way, the drained emotions of the lonely - playing russian roulette just by exhisting day to day. Others cover the plagues of war and injustices upon the family infrastructure. They fight the agnostic heathen and thumb their noses at anything resembling the formulaic backbone of Rock. They are good, real good. And, blunt.
**The Two bonus tracks included are Marmalade and Storaged, which are songs that are not to be bypassed. For Thirty more bucks? That's between you and the folded hunk of leather in your back pocket.
That touches the skeletal structure of an album that is alive and well. It is refreshingly different, as are all of their albums.
The videos, which can be seen through a number of sources on the net, are worthy of study and combine vision, style and coolness to enhance the songs they represent. {S~A~O~S}"
Verdict on the 2 bonus tracks
ex al pinshifter | 12/24/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"im giving 5 stars to the whole album click on all reviews to see my full review of all the other track im gonna look at the two bonus tracks witch are one of the few that are written by serj on his own since most system of a down songs are written by daron malakin the guitarist
marmalade 10/10 this has such an infectious riff may sound like something out of a horror film you might think well it is system of a down recorded it onto the strange land soundtrack a film made in the year 2000 the verse has some realli wacky bass work from shavo
storaged 6.5/10 uses alot of space i dont realli think its as good as the other lack of anything merable in my opinion too stop start for me"
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1