ALTROK Ordinals 14

The Samples - Return To Earth (Apache)
Jeff says: Yeah, okay, so they get lumped in with all the other hippie/jam/tree-hugging/noodle-dancing bands. Quite honestly I never heard much by them because I thought the same thing. And maybe if I weren't playing them on the radio so often nowadays I would still think that. Yes, they do sing of trees, rivers, oceans, the sky, mountains, and life in less complicated times, but ya know what? This new record is terrific. From an ode to Colorado called "Wild River" to high school remembrances in "The Class Of 1979" to the tongue-in-cheek "Radio Song" ("We'll just cry if we're never played") the Vermont band have made a wonderful, adult, heartfelt record.

System Of A Down - Toxicity (American/Columbia)
Jeff says: This record will make all of us feel like the headbangers we all were in the old days. SOAD are arguably the most intelligent, socially aware, intense, hard rocking, intelligent bands this side of Rage Against The Machine. Forced to choose, I would choose System. Not only are they loud and fast, but they also have pretty hot jazz chops (if you listen for them) and Serj Tankian has some of the best pipes in hard rock. Not only that, he's obviously one of the few honest "bleeding hearts" in hard rock. Perhaps the only hard rock band that should be required to print their lyrics in the booklet. That way all those impressionable young minds that will hear the words can actually hear about things like the prison system, the downward spiral drugs create, Armenian genocide, spirituality over science...and then go out and actually learn something about the world they live in.

(This week's Ordinals courtesy the almost omnipotent Jeff Raspe.)