Shop for heavy-music vinyl, apparel, toys and more — including classic System of a Down albums — over at our store.
On Friday, October 15th, System of a Down played their first show in over two years, which would have been notable enough, had their massive 25-plus-song setlist not included the live debuts of new cuts "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz." In case you somehow missed the seismic news, back in November 2020, SOAD surprise-released the two songs, the group's first new music in over 15 long years. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic's shutdown of the live music circuit, the band had been unable to play the politically charged singles together onstage until Friday's headlining show at the T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas. Watch the performances above and below.
Written by guitarist-vocalist Daron Malakian, "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz" were both motivated by the bloody 2020 conflict between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, the latter aided by Turkey. The Armenian-American alt-metal rabble-rousers were so moved that they put their long-standing creative differences aside and reunited in the studio to record the songs, which they used as a platform to raise awareness of the situation and funds for Artsakh and Armenian soldiers injured amid the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
