After nearly two decades without a new full-length album, System of a Down fans are clinging to a glimmer of hope as the band reemerges with renewed activity. The Armenian-American metal icons, whose last studio efforts — the back-to-back Mezmerize and Hypnotize — were released in 2005, have remained largely dormant in terms of new material. And it doesn’t seem like they’ve reached a place where that’ll happen anytime soon despite their most active schedule in years throughout 2025.
Frontman Serj Tankian, long seen as the most hesitant about rekindling the band’s recording process, recently suggested that he would be open to making a new record, “if it provides a fresh start.” Similarly, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John Dolmayan have expressed conditional optimism, with both saying they’d be ready to record again if the right circumstances aligned. But it’s guitarist and key songwriter Daron Malakian who remains the most cautious — if not outright doubtful — about the band’s creative future.
Speaking on Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast, Malakian opened up about his reservations. While he didn’t rule out the idea entirely, he noted the lost momentum the band suffered during their lengthy hiatus: “Well, we could do it, and it might even be good. I don’t know.
“But if you listen to even those five records that we have, if you listen to the first album to Toxicity, there is a difference between them. There was an evolution happening. And if I have to say one thing that the hiatus was something that… I wasn’t always down with that hiatus, but whatever — it is what it is. Every band has a different story. There was a time I was a little bit more pissed off about it. Now I kind of am, like, it is what it is.”
“But what I was pissed off about was that we didn’t get a chance to continue that evolution. ‘Cause I think we were capable of that. I think you’ve got some bands that make the same album over and over and over again. We would not have been that band. We kept our sound, but that sound would’ve gone into different places.”
Malakian emphasized that System of a Down was never a band to repeat itself. Each of their five studio albums pushed creative boundaries, and the guitarist feels that a 20-year gap in that evolution poses serious artistic questions: “So that’s my only regret, that we didn’t get a chance to do that. And so that’s why I said what I said [in a previous interview], that making an album 20, 25 years later, where do you pick up from?”
Despite his cautious outlook, Malakian acknowledged the surreal level of fan devotion that still surrounds System of a Down. The band’s recent tour in South America saw them sell out stadiums night after night, drawing massive crowds that, in many cases, weren’t even alive when the band’s last album dropped.
“I think part of it is we left off on a peak. We’ve had, ‘Are they gonna ever play? Are they not gonna play?’ And it’s all this kind of thing that happens. And then when we do play, people feel like, ‘Oh, this might be the last time they’re gonna play.’ And none of that has been done on purpose. That’s just the natural way things have gone. I also think it’s the songs.”
“The songs have lived with people, and it’s become some of the fabric of their lives in some cases. So many years have gone by. ‘Cause when we’re playing in front of these audiences, I don’t see 50-year-olds in there. I see 18-year-olds. I see 25-year-olds — kids that probably were born maybe even after we released Mezmerize and Hypnotize.”
While no official recording sessions have been confirmed, and the band remains fractured creatively, the circumstances are arguably more favorable now than they’ve been in years. All four original members have at least acknowledged the conversation, and the band’s reactivation through touring could be a step toward a larger creative reunion. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
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