System of a Down’s Toxicity was one of those bits of culture that made people against the American regime realize they weren’t crazy, and that someone else saw through the bullshit too. Eroding blind trust in the Endless War and the systems that suffocate us was — still is — a gradual process. Punters who’ll drunkenly stumble out of bars slaughtering the choruses to “Chop Suey!” and “Toxicity” probably never paid much mind to “Prison Song.” Yet, while you can’t claim one song or one album changed a tide on its own, prison abolition is not the fringe issue it once was. Shifting the conversation toward systematic failures instead of personal responsibility or prisoners’ alleged lack of morality is difficult, but it’s no longer impossible. Toxicity hit big on first contact, and its deeper messages are being realized through a slow build. It was a record of its time, and it’s a record of our time.