10 Metal Bands Who Made 5 Great Albums In A Row

It’s a shame System of a Down haven’t released any new music in 15 years because over a seven-year period the band made 5 albums so insane and decade-defining that nobody has come close to capturing the magic of this Armenian four-piece. There’s not an alternative club in the country that doesn’t play Chop Suey every night and somehow System of a Down made eccentric, wild, metal music the biggest sound in the world.

The band’s first album System of a Down, came along in 1998 and made a laughing stock of all the bandwagon hopping nu-metal bands dominating the mainstream. The band combined hardcore with metal and traditional Armenian folk music: it’s frenzied and a perfect debut which led onto the band’s mainstream classic Toxicity (2001). This album took the band from cult legends to domination and still sounds as good as it did 19 years ago. Next came 2002's Steal This Album! made up of b-sides and outtakes that live up to the quality of their predecessor.

System of a Down then ended their releases on Mezmerize (2005) and Hypnotize (2005) which were written by a band on the rocks and about to split up. The former features a tracklisting that could be its own greatest hits compilation and the latter is an excellent selection of bangers from this band that sounded wild, feral and savage. All these later and you still can't imitate System of a Down.