Listen: System of a Down’s Serj Tankian and Dethklok Team Up for a Cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla”

I guess System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian is over being over vocals — ’cause he’s lent his pipes to a new take on Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla,” recorded for the soundtrack for this summer’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The track was created with the movie’s composer, Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, 10 Cloverfield Lane), and, according to Rolling Stone, “The members of Dethklok… including Brendon Small and heavy-metal stalwart Gene Hoglan.” So this is basically a Dethklok track with guest vocals by Serj Tankian.

As for the recording itself, it’s… fine. It’s hard to mess up a riff as simple and catchy as this one. Having said that, I dunno that we needed all the chanting. Having said that, the lyrics — “History shows again and again/ How nature points out the folly of man” — definitely fit in with the rest of Tankian’s oeuvre (the original 1954 Godzilla, which was actually called Gojira, was a largely a response to the fallout from Hiroshima, in case you didn’t know).

Check out the track below. Godzilla: King of the Monsters comes out May 31; the soundtrack precedes it on May 24.