https://systemofadown.bandcamp.com/

Was not expecting this. The first new SOAD songs in 15 years got dropped to Bandcamp out of nowhere. "Protect the Land" is mellower than a usual SOAD song; I was reminded heavily of "Aerials" and "Soldier Side" throughout. On the other hand, "Genocidal Humanoidz" would be right at home on Hypnotize or Mezmerize in terms of being short and high energy, right down to a blast beat section in the middle. I quite like them both.

"Protect the Land" also has a music video.

These two new songs are excellent and the lyrics are even more relevant!

I love the songs especially Protect The Land. The band had this to say (which is all very important);

"On September 27, the combined forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey (along with Isis terrorists from Syria) attacked the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which we as Armenians call Artsakh. For over the past month, civilians young and old have been awakened day and night by the frightful sights and sounds of rocket attacks, falling bombs, missiles, drones and terrorist attacks. They’ve had to find sanctuary in makeshift shelters, trying to avoid the fallout of outlawed cluster bombs raining down on their streets and homes, hospitals and places of worship. Their attackers have set their forests and endangered wildlife ablaze using white phosphorus, another banned weapon.

And Why?

Because over 30 years ago in 1988, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (which at the time was an Autonomous Oblast within the USSR), were tired of being treated as second class citizens and decided to declare their rightful independence from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic whose borders engulfed their own. This ultimately led to a war of self determination by Armenians in Karabakh against Azerbaijan that ended in a cease fire in 1994, with Armenians retaining control of their ancestral homelands and maintaining their independence to the present day. Our people have lived there for millennia, and for most families there, it’s the only home they and their forefathers and mothers have ever known. They just want to live in peace as they have for centuries.

The current corrupt regimes of Aliyev in Azerbaijan and Erdogan in Turkey now want to not only claim these lands as their own, but are committing genocidal acts with impunity on humanity and wildlife to achieve their mission. They are banking on the world being too distracted with COVID, elections and civil unrest to call out their atrocities. They have the bankroll, the resources and have recruited massive public relations firms to spin the truth and conceal their barbaric objective of genocide. This is not the time to turn a blind eye.

There is an immediate need for global citizens to urge their respective governments to not only condemn the actions of these crooked dictators, but to also insist world leaders act with urgency to bring peace to the region and rightfully recognize Artsakh as the independent nation it is.

We realize that for many of you, there are more convenient ways you like listening to music, so please consider the opportunity to download these songs as an act of charity above all else. Think of the list price for the downloads as a minimum donation, and if you have the ability and can be more generous with your donation, every single member of System Of A Down will be even more grateful for your benevolence. Band royalties from this initiative will be donated to Armenia Fund, a US based charity organization instrumental in providing those in need in Artsakh and Armenia with supplies needed for their basic survival.

The music and lyrics speak for themselves. We need you to speak for Artsakh."

Peace,

Daron, Shavo, John and Serj

Protect the Land has a pretty great riff to it. There are certainly some signs of aging with the musicianship not being as wild anymore, but that's more or less to be expected. If this material is anything to go by, a new full-length would be pretty good.

Glad to see SOAD haven't lost it. It's always been a shame that they were lumped in with the nü metal scene.

To be fair, they pretty much were nu metal on their debut. They were just a version of nu metal with actually good songwriting and energy that wasn’t angsty “fuck you, Dad!” nonsense. Them and Slipknot being the sole survivors of that whole period of heavy music is not surprising when you compare them to just about every other band that made music like that around that time.

Holy shit new System?! I can hardly believe this.

Unfortunately "Protect the Land" is exactly the kind of song I was hoping new System material wouldn't sound like, ie Scars on Broadway with Serj as a backup singer. I've always really disliked the Daron-oriented stuff, and this reminds me why. He's just such a shitter singer than Serj is. Plus the music is just pretty eh.

"Genocidal Humanoidz" is a lot better though! One of those zany numbers like Cigaro or Vicinity of Obscenity, and it sounds 100% SOAD. It does sound a lot like Mezermize/Hypnotize, and while I've always been much more into the first three albums, this is still good.



Sure, but at the same time I've also never heard much similarity in sound between Slipknot and System of a Down.

Oh they were definitely everything nu metal was defined to be. They just showed that you could be intentionally idiosyncratic within that rather artistically starved style.

Relistening to these two songs, I gotta say that I really loved when SOAD's lyrics were more bizarre and absurdist while still conveying a fairly clear message. They started being much more on-the-nose with some songs on Steal This Album like Boom! and even more so on Mezermize and Hypnotize, and the lyrics on these two follow that trend. While I think it's definitely cool that they're drawing attention to a real Armenian crisis in Protect the Land that isn't being covered much in mainstream meida, the lyrics just...aren't good.

Even on their debut, there was a heaviness that most other Nu-Metal bands didn't have. They would incorporate thrashier riffs and faster sections. A song like "Darts" off their debut was so much heavier than what Korn and Limp Bizkit and the like were doing.

Genocidal Humanoidz is a great song, I've listened a few times now. Protect The Land is a good slower song, but I've always prefered the faster System songs.

As for System and Slipknot being the two left standing. Corey Taylor seems to be pretty with it politically. As does System (well besides the Maga Drummer). Most of the other prominent figures in Nu-Metal are idiots. Slipknot and System also managed to change their sound in a much better direction than most of the other Nu-Metal bands. Deftones also can be thrown in there for starting off with a Nu-Metal type sound and changing to something better. A band like Korn still could pack people in for concerts, but musically their attempts to try to change weren't met with the same acclaim as System, Slipknot, or The Deftones and lack the respect those bands have gotten critically.

Holy fuck I had no idea John Dolmayan was a Trump supporter. Wow, that's devastating.

I'm pretty much 100000% in agreement with Raz. Genocidal Humanoidz gave me immediate flashbacks to Vicinity of Obscenity, which is actually not one of my favorites but it's nice to hear them sound exactly like what I was hoping for them to sound like on an imaginary 2008 album. Protect the Land is the exact opposite, precisely what I was hoping they wouldn't sound like whenever a comeback would happen. I get it, I get that it's all about the message and raising funds for a cause dear to their hearts, and it's appropriately heartfelt in that way, but fuck dude it sounds like it was written in as long as it takes to play. I feel like it was trying to hearken back to ATWA or something but it really falls flat. Without a doubt the most boring SOAD song to date.

And just because the conversation is/was inevitable: I think it's disingenuous/revisionist to say SOAD shouldn't have been and/or never was part of the nu metal scene for the same reason it'd be silly to say Sigh isn't/shouldn't be part of the black metal scene. They were undeniably an integral part of the scene and had like a 98% overlap in fans, they were just weirder is all. The self titled is indisputably nu metal approached at a different angle than their peers and Toxicity is a little more detached but equally important for the scene. However, if "alternative metal" is to be considered a valid subgenre, then I can't think of many better examples than Mezmerize and Hypnotize. Saying tracks like Revenga and Attack are nu metal is just as silly as saying Sugar is not.

5 plays = 1 Azeri drone shot down

I didn't really like any of the new songs, they sound like Mezmerize/Hypnotize b-sides and those are already my least favourite SOAD albums.

I can understand that except I think there's a handful of shittier songs across those two albums. For example, if Genocidal Humanoidz took the place of either Lonely Day or She's Like Heroin off Hypnotize then it would've been a better album.

I guess it'll be interesting to see if they continue from here. I guess I'd be fine either way. I do hope to see them live again at some point, though.

RATM, anyone?


Yeah odd timing as that recently came out, and kinda super weird. SOAD was very political at times so if there was disagreement there why make new politically charged music together? Odd.

That said, I had not expected SOAD to do anything more, but shoot, these songs are pretty damn good.

THIS is the most important news of the day, forget the election. Loved both songs.

Rage Against the Machine was not nu metal. They were adjacent to that scene by way of the rapping, but nu metal was considerably more aggro and whiny and shallow compared to Rage. Calling Rage nu metal is like calling Faith No More nu metal.

^kinda my point yo

I feel like I'm kind of alone in this opinion, but throughout the 12 years or so I've been a fan of this band, Mezmerize and Hypnotize have slowly become my favorite albums of theirs by far. In my mind, they hold up much better in terms of structural diversity and maturity of the songwriting. I actually like Daron and Serj about equally as vocalists, with Daron having better presence in the choruses and Serj being better at just shrieking or sounding weird, so Daron being more present on those two albums isn't a turn-off for me like it seems to be for other people (EDIT: and also, I like the near constant vocal harmony/interplay on those albums that results from them both vying for attention). I prefer the guitar riffs on those albums too - the mix of nu-metal, alt rock, big riffy hard rock, Armenian folk rock, and thrash/groove just makes for more dynamic music than the relatively straightforward nu-metal + punk formula utilized for the s/t up through Steal This Album! If they had made several more albums in the Mezmerize/Hypnotize style, or even exacerbated the trends that unfolded with those albums, that would have been just fine with me.

All of this to say that "Genocidal Humanoidz" is basically all I could have ever wanted from the band in the wake of those two albums - a full album of that would be more than I could ever ask for. The blast beat section fucking rules. "Protect the Land" is good too, but is a fair bit weaker than comparable slow later-era SOAD songs like "Holy Mountains" or "Soldier Side". I agree that it feels a bit phoned in, though the sliding riff that first appears at 1:09 is really cool. Hopefully SOAD is angry enough about this conflict for long enough that we get even more new music!!!

Even though Mesmerize/Hypnotize are probably their most popular albums, I've honestly never heard someone articulate why they prefer them to the first three in such a way, so thanks, MC. I don't really see it that way at all (really don't like Daron's singing as I mentioned, and I much prefer the louder, more angry and weird direction of the earlier stuff) but I can at least see where you're coming from, and we can definitely agree that the world needs more new SOAD.

Yeah, and I don't mean to crap on the earlier stuff - it's still excellent music. I just find that it doesn't sound quite as diverse. On Toxicity, the first five songs (up until "Chop Suey!") all start or directly lead into a dumb chuggy riff that's in the key of C. Sometimes that raw aggression is what I'm wanting to hear, and it's still definitely unique, but I think their later music has more to pick apart - vocal harmonies, unexpected forays into completely different genres, faster tempos, different instruments, more variety of pace, etc. If Serj were still the primary vocalist on those albums, I think most fans would also agree that those albums were their favorites.

Are they? Best selling maybe? Not really sure...

MutantClannfear good posts I agree expect for liking Mesmerize/Hypnotize more than their earlier stuff. Toxicity just has a unique combination of frenetic energy, emotion, with base of solid song writing that makes it special to me. I think they wrote some better songs on M/H, and I love those albums, but i guess it's kinda that question of youthful energy vs maturity.

I really like Daron as vocalist though and I love how present his voice is in Protect the Land. Serg and Daron are both "lead" vocals just different in my mind for SOAD.

Anyway, happy pizza pie!

One reason why System of a Down was (and still is) the "A-tier" of nü metal alongside Korn on their debut and Slipknot at their absolute best is because they're coming from some really good underground sounds. The other groups feel like they listened to Faith No More, Ministry, Rage Against the Machine, Peter Gabriel, Cypress Hill, Rob Zombie, Slayer, and Biohazard and then tried making something out of that general mishmash but then had their work sabotaged by Ross Robinson, Roadrunner Records, and MTV.

SOAD always felt like they were some bizarro demented grind/sludge metal band that just happened to throw in some jumpdafuckup riffs here and there (seriously, "Sugar" and Slayer's "Death's Head" are almost the same riff, but SOAD's somehow 10x more interesting despite it). They were like if an Armenian Buzz Osborne took speed before recording Houdini.
You could especially hear it on their demos.

Perhaps the funniest bit of timing about all this is that Azerbaijan's military recently released a milquetoast metal song against Armenia.



It's almost like SOAD's new tracks was a response to this shit.

The new songs are fine as is. Regarding the lyrics being "on-the-nose", I'd say that was the intention. They had a message to pass across and they didn't want to be mystical and esoteric about it. I can dig that. The lyrics definitely carry their trademark sincerity and conviction even if they seem plain and underdone to some. The tone is also fine by me. Protect The Land is almost folky but with distorted guitars and its seemingly bare approach carries it home, Genocidal Humanoidz is busier but doesn't rely on catchy melodies and hooks as you'd expect from SOAD. It is about the message and that sacrifices catchiness, but I found it to be a bludgeoning and affecting listen nonetheless.

I agree with MC this time. Mezmerize is my favorite SOAD album and the only reason the margin between #1 and #2 isn't wider for me is the massive nostalgia goggles I have for Toxicity. Daron is a far worse vocalist than Serj and I can't stress enough how fucking goofy his parts on BYOB are, but like... have you heard the rest of the song? I think the M/H era was by far their creative peak and the only things holding them back from being among my all time favorites is that there are too many slow songs and they simply aren't as good at those (well aware of Aerials tyvm, I consider that to be something of a fluke) but those are offset by sharing album space with all of their fastest songs, and it creates the added benefit of making the albums more dynamic than their earlier stuff and ergo more interesting/unpredictable listens. And despite the gulf in talent between Serj and Daron vocally, they harmonize incredibly well and I think they worked best together on those two albums.

So yes, H/M is my favorite era of SOAD and Genocidal Humanoidz is easily the better song of the two new ones specifically because it sounds like the logical continuation of what they were doing there.

Pointless side note: I've been saying for a while now that Maximum the Hormone gets unfairly overlooked thanks to their association with Death Note when really they picked up the torch exactly when SOAD dropped it, but now they're at the same point in their career; five albums down with an increasingly lengthy amount of time since the last one, which was also their most dynamic and interesting album. Well earlier this year they released a new single that doesn't seem planned for any particular upcoming album, and it's also one of their heaviest songs and also features a short blasting section. So basically this further solidifies my theory that MTH and SOAD are secretly the same band.

Spiders, man. Spiders. And Mr. Jack.

Yeeeeah.... Daron was the goofy one....

I mean, I rep for Serj, he's amazing and unlike anyone else. But c'mon, he is goofy as fuck.

Yeah, those two albums had great songs (BYOB, Question!, Holy Mountains, etc) but overall the silly repetitive songs and Daron Malakian annoying vocals kill the mood for me. If they had used the best songs from each album and Serj was the only vocalist it could have been almost as good as the first two albums.

"ALL YOU MAGGOT-SMOKING FAGS ON SANTA MONICA BOULEVARD"

Yeah Daron's vocals on Mezmerize are a buzzkill. The harmonized parts with Serj are infinitely better because System always wrote catchy hooks that made you wanna sing along.

Serj is goofy in the sense that he makes silly noises and sounds like he's having juvenile fun even when the subject is serious. Daron sounds goofy in the sense that he sounds like a shrieking child-chihuahua.

Then again, that might be part of the charm in Daron's vocals. I like Serj's vocals as well, but Daron has a certain thing in his goofiness that makes his performance hilarious.

I like Daron as a backup vocalist, but his voice is obnoxious on songs like Lost In Hollywood and other songs in Mesmerize/Hypnotize. It seemed like he was trying to force his voice in over Serj at times. Serj is goofy, but that's what makes him so unique and different. There aren't a lot of singers that sound like Serj and Daron's voice doesn't stand out as much. Daron's voice kind of sounds Emoish at times to me as well and hurt a lot of songs. Serj's voice and singing style is one of the main things that defines the band and going away from it with Daron's vocals started to strip away a lot of uniqueness. I think if they released a follow up to Hypnotize/Mesmerize in 2008 or 2009 a lot of songs would sound like "Lonely Day" and the band would've started getting blander.

Both songs were good, but Genocidal Humanoidz is definitely the better one. I agree that their slower songs are not their best (with some exceptions) so I hope that, if they do make a new album, it's more geared towards the faster material. I know it won't, but I can always hope.

My favourite album from them is hard to say. I like all their stuff. Steal This Album! really lacks punch at the end of the album but does have good tracks. Mezmerize/Hypnotize are more varied in their approach.

Ah, I might listen to some System of a Down now.

I listened to the song in the OP and it was actually decent. It sounds sort of like Six Feet Under mixed with melodic alternative rock. Interesting for a band that was lumped in with nu-metal, if that song is a good representation of their style.

I'll take this opportunity to ask: what are everyone's most-liked (or least hated) nu-metal songs? A couple of mine are Korn's "Ball Tongue" and Slipknot's "Only One". On Ball Tongue, Jonathan Davis's whimper-whining and bellowing is incredibly unpleasant to listen to, but the drumming and bass slapping are super-funky and so is the the opening riff. "Only One" has a fun frantic groove to it, and Corey Taylor's rapping is surprisingly good.

One I personally don't hate is from P.O.D. of all groups— the last song on Satellite, called "Portrait."

It's probably their only song that's actually functionally metal, even if more like groove metal. It'd be a fairly average song on most metal albums and its cheesy Christian rock lyrics bring it down further, but it's one of the strongest nü metal tracks out there and it's from fucking P.O.D. The Douche Age was a bizarre for heavy music.

Going more with the topic starters themselves, most of their songs were pretty good, especially for nü metal, but I love the closer for Steal This Album, "Streamline."

Is it their best song? No. But it's probably my favorite of theirs. That riffs/solo in the middle was like a braingasm long before I was old enough to be allowed to feel those.

Well I've been commenting in this thread because I think SOAD fucking rules so basically anything from their catalogue is gonna be a winner. If you jumped out at me right now and demanded I choose a favorite song of theirs without thinking or else you'd bite me, I'd probably blurt out Needles. But ask me again in ten minutes and it could be Attack or Old School Hollywood or Deer Dance or Suite-Pee or Revenga or

None of them sound a damn thing like Korn etc but that's probably why they still hold up.

When I heard this song like 15 years ago, I thought it was the heaviest thing on the planet.

w a t