It’s almost hard to believe just how massive System Of A Down managed to get around the turn of the millennium as their music is so ridiculous in almost every single way imaginable, but the fact of the matter is that they literally haven’t released any new songs in fifteen years and can still headline massive festivals like Download off the back of it. True superstars of nu metal.
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The day has finally come though where System Of A Down have released new music, with the two new tracks appearing on social media in the early hours of this morning. The band aim to draw attention to the conflict in their ancestral homeland of Armenia thought their new songs.
I’m gonna be honest and say that I have absolutely no idea what the conflict over there is about, so I’ll let you read System Of A Down’s statement about it below the two tracks that have been released ‘Protect The Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’:
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
Well I’ve gotta say that they’ve succeeded in achieving their goal of raising awareness about it because I had absolutely no idea about it and now know a fair bit after reading that. I would encourage you to donate money to download these songs if you feel like it would help the situation over there, but maybe try and do some of your own research instead of blindly believing everything they’ve put out there.
As for the two songs, I suppose there were you would expect System Of A Down to be in 2021. ‘Protect The Land’ sounds like a slow SOAD song without the spazzy parts – although they still have that weird vocal interplay between Serj and Daron and that amazing crunchy guitar tone – and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ satisfies that itch you’re missing in the other one by being really fast and spazzy and hard and stupid and even bordering on death metal in parts. Pretty good but I’m probably not going to be listening to them that much, merely because I don’t listen to SOAD that much anymore because I’m not a weird goth teenager anymore.
Hopefully these new tracks make some people happy though and help with the situation over in Armenia. Hopefully SOAD make some more music as well because that’s something I’m sure that a lot of people would be stoked on.
For more of the same, here’s a CKY song from a couple years ago you might have missed. Not that great to be honest but still a bit of a lol.
