Here’s Your First Taste of Serj Tankian’s New EP of Rejected System of a Down Songs
Correction, February 4, 2021: As it turns out, these songs were NOT rejected by System of a Down. I apologize for my mistaken and rash assumption. You can read our complete correction here.
We are mere days away from hearing material Serj Tankian’s rejected material for System of a Down.
To review: SOAD haven’t released an album since 2005’s Mezmerize/Hypnotize set, and all parties involved have publicly agreed that the reason for this is creative differences. Not, like, “creative differences” the way people say when they’re trying to be polite but they actually mean “the other dude is an asshole.” Like, actual creative differences.
Specifically, it seems pretty clear that guitarist Daron Malakian wants to remain the dominant songwriting force in System of a Down, while frontman Tankian wants to contribute more — not surprising, given that he has said he didn’t even wanna make Mezmerize and Hypnotize.
Now we’re starting to get a clearer picture of Malakian and Tankian’s warring visions for the band: in November, they put aside their differences and released two new songs, “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz,” to raise awareness of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the territory of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh). Those songs, which were both penned by Malakian, sound very much in the vein of Mezmerize/Hypnotize — album which, again, Tankian didn’t even wanna make in the first place.
Tankian, meanwhile, has announced the impending release of the title track from Elasticity, his upcoming EP of material he originally penned for, but was ultimately rejected by, System of a Down. The song will premiere via a music video this Thursday, February 4 at 9 pm PST/ midnight EST. You can check out part of the song and video in Tankian’s announcement post, below…
…and, no, it doesn’t sound a whole lot like “Protect the Land” or “Genocidal Humanoidz.” Obviously, it’s hard to be 100% on this until we hear the full track; also obviously, “Elasticity” would be an at least somewhat different song had the other members of SOAD contributed to its final form. But, again, it seems fairly clear here that there are some legit creative differences between Tankian and Malakian.
Check out the sample below and see what you think; then be back here Thursday for the entire song.
BTW, the “Genocidal Humanoidz” music video debuted over the weekend; you can check it out here.
[via The PRP]
