Updated 13th November
Yes, that’s right, System of a Down have released NEW music!
Now, why is this such a big deal?
Well, the last album from SOAD was Hypnotize, their fifth studio album, and that was released all the way back in 2005!
The album reached #1 in the American and Canadian charts, and was certified Gold and Platinum in the same year as its release, but a sixth album never materialised.
Since 2005, we have seen 3 American Presidents, a world-wide Pandemic, the rise of Fake News and the start of a ‘post-truth’ era.
For a political heavy metal band who usually have a lot to say, SOAD have a lot to work with!
The New Music
Yesterday, November 6th, the band released two new songs, ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ and ‘Protect The Land’, the latter of which also has a music video.
The band released a statement with this announcement:
“We as System Of A Down have just released new music for the first time in 15 years. The time to do this is now, as together, the four of us have something extremely important to say as a unified voice.
These two songs, Protect The Land and Genocidal Humanoidz both speak of a dire and serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia.”
System of a Down
So, let’s discuss both of these songs in turn.
Genocidal Humanoidz
The great news is that SOAD sound just as good as they ever did.
Starting with this song: it still has the same fast, driving guitar riffs, varied drums and Serj still sounds as incredible as he did 15 years ago.
The message of the song is fairly obvious in the lyrics: standing up and fighting against the evils in the world. Even though its tough, if we don’t do it, no-one else will save us.
Though I always liked the more cryptic and confusing lyrics, such as with Needles. The lyrics may funny, and even nonsensical at first, but can be analysed several different ways.
Pull the tapeworm out of your ass, hey!
Needles – System of a Down
People have argued that this song is about Drugs, the Media, the Government and even Aliens! You won’t get this kind of disucssion with ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’, that’s for sure.
That’s not to say there aren’t some creative lyrics here too though. My favourite line in the song is this:
“The prostitutes who prosecute
Genocidal Humanoidz – System of a Down
have failed us from the start”
Protect the Land
The music video for this song helps to make the political message come through even clearer.
The lyrics are again very simple and the chorus is rather chanty, repeating “who will protect the land” over and over.
This works for making the blunt message of the song clear: military forces ‘protecting’ a country can end up helping to destroy it. However, as a song, this style means there is less variety in it and can put people off of repeat listens.
The visuals of the music video still have that intrinsic quality of being horrible and yet mesmerising (or even beautiful), which has always worked well with System songs.
Rather than the highly stylised music videos of the past, like BYOB, this video is very real, seemingly amateur footage shot within Armenia (such as the wide sweeping shots of crowd holding the Armenian flag.
Both ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ and ‘Protect the Land’ are fantastic songs and prove that System have not lost their touch.
Both songs are available from the bands Bandcamp account, with all profits from sales of these songs going to charity.
“The funds from Bandcamp + pre-orders of our new merch collection will be used to provide crucial, desperately needed aid and basic supplies for those affected by the hideous acts happening in Artsakh at the hands of the current corrupt regimes of Aliyev in Azerbaijan and Erdogan in Turkey”
System of a Down
Band Politics
System of a Down have always been seen as left-wing, as their music is often critical of government and right-wing ideologies.
Right: An album, MAYBE influenced by the book
However, the bands drummer, John Dolmayan, seems to hold opposing views to the rest of the band, and is very outspoken about them.
In the past few months he has stated that the Black lives Matter protestors “never had legitimacy”, “Donald Trump is the greatest friend to minorities” and that Bernie Sanders’ agenda was “Socialism disguised as democratic socialism”.
John does also state however that he has an open mind.
He thinks the world isn’t as black and white as either political side would like us to believe and that “it’s okay to have diversity of opinion” (though his views don’t tend to be terribly diverse…)
Though Serj Tankien is the song-writer for the band, with the band in the recording studio at the moment (hopefully releasing more music soon), it will be interesting to see if there is any change to the political slant on any new album compared to the older albums.
Wrap Up
The metal band System of a Down have released two new songs after a 15 year gap.
The music is still political, a joy to listen to, maybe a little less cryptic than their previous work, but overall very enjoyable.
Hopefully they continue to work and we do eventually get a new album.
Update
Since the bands new music release, they have managed to raise over $600,000 (£455,000) for the Armenia fund. For an appeal that started less than a week ago, that is an incredible result!
The band responded:
“Because of you, we will be able to help displaced civilians, young and old, who are affected by the hideous war crimes inflicted upon Artsakh by Azerbaijan and Turkey.”
System of a Down
