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E! Online

Where the debut sometimes resembled a psycho-ward jam session, System serve up some surprising melodies on "Chop Suey!" "Forest" and the haunting "Aerials."

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Alternative Press

The fast parts are faster, the hard parts are harder, and the melodic sections are more memorable. [Oct 2001, p.102]

L.A. Weekly

Cast in layers upon layers of aural intricacy, Toxicity charters new frontiers, yet it’s still grinding rock at its most deafening.

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Q Magazine

Matches Slipknot for manic intensity while employing a freeform approach to songcraft which invites comparison to the lunatic-fringe rock of the late '60s. [Sep 2001, p.122]

Rolling Stone

System of a Down's sophomore album thrives on this sort of urgency, the adrenal rush that insists there's no time for ambiguity.

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Revolver

45 minutes of jagged, uneven music that includes sparks of urgent genius, and perhaps five or six seconds that border on legitimate transcendence. [Nov/Dec 2001, p.117]

Entertainment Weekly

They have a sense of dynamics, tempering their heaviness with unexpected touches of acoustic folksiness and prog-rock flourishes.

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Sonicnet

When System's at their best, the Los Angeles four-piece evokes most vividly punk politicos the Dead Kennedys.... Yet the band sputters out when the lyrics are awash in vagueness.

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Uncut

Toxicity is virtually unlistenable: thrash metal splintered into a million pieces by unnecessary time changes, topped off with excruciatingly theatrical vocals. [Dec 2001, p.118]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 237 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alonso C gave it a10:
Toxicity and Mezmerize are their best albums, Toxicity was their first great hit, they just made a great work on it, with Toxicity, Aerials, Chop Suey!, the 3 singles, the Cd becomes one of the greatest metal albums for me.

jim s gave it a10:
I love this cd it is perfect and could be SOAD's best album i'd pay $100 for it i think the best song is Chop Suey! (which is going to be in Rock Band 2!) if you don't own it you need to buy this!

Joseph A. gave it a6:
Looking back at 01', a sudden listen to "Sugar" got me on a SoaD rush, as such I borrowed the album from a friend to get back some memories. As I went through the album, I rembered why they called it a sugar rush. As a blazed through the great works of the spoken-word/screams of "Prison Song", the oddly nonsensical yet fitting afterburners of "Jet Song", calculated insanities of "Science" and the demented grunts of " Psycho". With the above mentioned songs I thought that the rest of the album would be of the same insanity. Alas, I find myself surrounded in banality rather than insanity with the release. Even an old favorite, "Chop Suey" feels (With no help from the stagnation of modern music called Nu Metal which based it sound off of simmilar sound.) Feels... repetitive. Loud, soft, LOUD, soft, OVERLY LOOOONG LOUD PART! It gets to your head after a few listens of another Rick Rubin Reduction, which lever the sound not raw, but processed. The lyrics are another interesting juxtaposition, with sing-song shrieks of ,"Jet Pilot" and "Bounce" to stereotypical whines of (GASP!) "Toxicity" and "Aerials" are somewhat disconcerning, as if lyrical maturity is being supressed by some unknown prejudice. And since SoaD has been making a rather healthy living, works like "Serjart" and other actual experiments in music, or even metal like mathcore, experimental metal outfits will be shunned in favor of cheap repeats of this album.

Joel C gave it a10:
This album gets 10 on Chop Suey and Forest alone, no joke. Add in 12 bonus tracks that are nearly equally as good and voila.

Jiri V. gave it a10:
The essential album by SOAD. One of best albums of this century so far regardless the musical style. The mirror facing our era. Hard, funny, creative, melodical.

Declan A. gave it a10:
This has to be one of my favourite albums of all time. It's exhilarating from start to finish, and Serj's voice is amazing. You can listen to it again and again and get the same rush you did first time listening to it. Out of this world

Joshua S. gave it a10:
The guy who wrote the article for Uncut: Just shut up, just fucking shut up! it's quite clear some of the reviewers don't like metal bands from the new millennium at all so they might as well not bother reviewing if they already have a pessimistic preconception

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