Attention Serj Tankian fans! The System of a Down vocalist and acclaimed solo artist will be releasing his third solo album, ‘Harakiri,’ on July 10, but today is your lucky day — the entire ‘Harakiri’ album is now available for streaming in full.

Although System of a Down are officially back in business, Serj Tankian has put and enormous amount of thought and effort into ‘Harakiri,’ which is a must-hear for both Serj and SOAD fans. The album mixes Tankian’s classic operatic wail and Middle Eastern influence with towering social commentary and a modern electronic kick.

In our recent interview with Serj Tankian, he shared the story behind the ‘Harakiri’ title, which is a Japanese term for ritualistic suicide. “The title track came about when we experienced in January of 2011 the massive deaths of birds and fish around the world,” says Tankian. “And to me it was such a symbolic ominous sign of things that are happening that I could not [avoid] looking into it or feel for it, so that’s when I wrote the first song for the record and since then a lot of the songs just started coming to me.”

Tankian continues, “I didn’t really plan on making another rock record last year. It just kind of all came to me so I guess that’s good because the truth comes out unfiltered and pretty easily sometimes and that’s how this record was put together.”

We highly recommend giving ‘Harakiri’ a good listen, so check it out in the media player below.

Listen to Serj Tankian, ‘Harakiri’ [Courtesy of Red Bull USA]

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