Six months after System of a Down's Mezmerize debuted at number o­ne o­n Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, the uncompromising and outspoken quartet returns with Hypnotize, part two of a promised two-album set.  American Recordings/Columbia will release two versions of Hypnotize, the band's fifth studio album, o­n November 22.

Both the CD and DualDisc versions feature 12 new songs as well as artwork by Vartan Malakian, father of SOAD's guitarist/singer Daron.  The packaging for Hypnotize is specially designed to physically join Mezmerize and Hypnotize together, forming o­ne unified product with continuous artwork.  Additionally, the DualDisc edition will contain exclusive behind-the-scenes footage showing the making of both records.

More importantly, the albums interlock musically.  The final track o­n Hypnotize, "Soldier Side" completes "Soldier Side Intro," which appears as the opening track o­n Mezmerize.

This show blew me away in every way, shape and form. The crowd never sat down, hung o­n to and sang every word and the night was completely majestic. I had been prepared for the boys to be a little less energetic than they were in past years but they were all over the place. Maybe not as frantically but they were moving and moving well.

Bad Acid Trip started a bit after 7, the pit still small and the seats barely filled. The singer had charisma, he was different in many ways but he carried himself well. The rest of the band was mediocre at best and even the singer wasn't too good for performance.

Tonight I went to see System of a Down at the DCU Center in Massachusetts. This was my first real concert and I didn't know what to expect. I ended up purchasing ticket numbers 1 and 2 at the floor section during pre-order...Tickets don't get any better! (Unless they are VIP) I planned o­n leaving at 4:30pm for the show (7:00pm), but my friend got to my house 40 mins late and we ended up arriving more around 6:00pm. The line was huge and I was worried that we we're going to be in the very back of the floor. So we waited for a half an hour until they let us in.

To our surprise the floor was almost empty. We we're maybe two or three people behind the very center-front. I was VERY exctied. Not knowing what to expect from a concert I started talking to the people around me. Just about all of them were nice as could be. They said there was nothing to worry about. That made me feel a lot better.

The second half of System of a Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize will feature the band's first instrumental ... and make sure you call it that.

When bassist Shavo Odadjian referred to "Hezze" as a jam recently, singer/guitarist Daron Malakian quickly corrected him "It's not a jam," he said.
"It's a song, but it's a jam because it's without vocals, that's why I say that," Odadjian argued.

"It's an instrumental," Malakian insisted. "You know how anal I am about that word. [I hate] when people call classical music 'songs.' They are not songs. You've got to sing for a song. Music is instrumentals. It's important to me. It's not a jam either, because jams are improvised.".