Steal This Album!

Amazon.co.uk With a title to strike fear into humble record-shop managers the world over, Steal This Album finds the anti-establishment edge of crazed American-Armenian metal dissidents System of a Down as finely honed as ever. Although the album consists mainly of offcuts from the quartet's previous album, 2001's Toxicity, it seems that System are categorically incapable of writing sub-standard material: "Innervision" and "Streamline" bristle with death-metal heaviness and thrash virtuosity, while the mighty "Boom!" proves System's doom-laden message lies at the heart of their musical agenda, spoken-word snippets about Third World starvation and nuclear paranoia sticking up like razor-sharp shards between the broiling choruses. What makes System of a Down truly peerless, however, is their skill at flipping genres in the blink of an eye. "Nuguns" boasts a solo that appears to be played on some archaic Eastern European stringed instrument, while the oddly touching "Roulette" finds vocalist Serj Tankian and guitarist Daron Malakian performing a vocal duet backed by acoustic guitar and keening violin. Too good to be dismissed as a mere rarities compilation, Steal This Album should be considered a sister record to Toxicity, or at least an excellent stop-gap before the band's next hotly-anticipated instalment --Louis Pattison Product description System of a Down - Steal This Album