“Spiders” by System of a Down

"Spiders" was the second single from System of a Down's self-titled 1998 debut, and it's the album's slow, dread-soaked exhale, a song that creeps rather than charges. Set in C minor at a crawl, it leans on drum rolls and syncopation in the verses while Serj Tankian, who wrote the words, sings low and melodic over echoing overdubs before snapping into something wilder and more dissonant in the refrains. The minor-key intro keeps coming back as a motif, and after the second refrain Daron Malakian takes a solo bridge that pushes against the key with chords that don't belong.

Rick Rubin produced with the band and added piano, Sylvia Massy engineered and David Sardy mixed. It landed on the Scream 3 soundtrack, with a brief spot in the film, and later in Rock Band 4.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.