It’s been some time since System of a Down has released new music, with their last singles, “Protect the Land” and “GenocidalHumanoidz”, in 2020. But fans won’t have to wait long to hear the band’s frontman, Serj Tankian, as he announced a new album dropping this fall.
With a video announcement on Instagram, Tankien’s Covers, Collaborations & Collages will release on October 24, just a week before Halloween. Outside of System of a Down, Tankian has had a long career, with the new album including unreleased tracks, covers, and collaborations.
“I wanted to put out a record of collaborations I haven’t released before, along with covers, which I haven’t done,” said Tankian on his official website.
Some of the confirmed artists included on the album are Deadmau5, Bic Runga, and Lucas Vidal. The new album is set to feature a total of 10 songs, with Tankian releasing one song per week starting in August.
“Over the next ten weeks, I will release one song from the album per week and share the stories and inspirations behind each one,” he wrote on Instagram
The first song to be released was “Electric Dreams,” a song that is a “dark, trippy song with piano and delayed vocals reminiscent of Dead Can Dance or Pink Floyd.” With the latest new release being “A Seed” featuring Deadmau5.
Tankian explains the song, “begins with a haunting piano intro that opens itself to a polyrhythmic trip; a carousel that has no beginning or end. The lyrics are derived from ‘Cool Gardens’ – my first book of poetry.”
Part of the album will also include covers, with Tankian tackling “When Death Arrives” by Ruben Hakhverdyan. The musician also explained that the idea behind his 2024 Foundations EP can be found in the new album, as both are composed of “archival recordings, some of them from way back.”
