Serj Tankian’s Solo ‘Justice Will Shine On,’ Written During System of a Down’s Early Days

ON HIS NEW solo single, “Justice Will Shine On,” System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian reflects on the generational turmoil his ancestors have felt since the Armenian Genocide. He opens the song by asking his grandfather to speak of his childhood, before the genocide, and the anguish builds into a miasma of frustration that you can see on his face in the music video. “We are the children of all the survivors/Justice will shine on,” he sings in an angular melody over tortured riffs that he recorded with his backing band, the FCC. “We are the demons of all the deniers/Justice will shine on.” The song will feature on Tankian’s upcoming five-track EP, Foundations, due out via Gibson Records on Sept. 27. It is available for preorder now.

Tankian wrote the song during System of a Down’s early days but didn’t record it until now. It follows another Foundations song, the punky “A.F. Day,” which Tankian wrote around the same time.