Tom Morello and Serj Tankian Find Direct Anger on “Adjourn It”

The new single “Adjourn It” brings Tom Morello together with System of a Down’s Serj Tankian for a track that lays out its politics without detours. Morello has said the song was written in response to the persecution of immigrants and a rising current of fascism. The accompanying video folds together imagery from Mexican-American miner strikes and the Hollywood blacklist of the midcentury.

Tankian’s cadence on the chorus lands close to the Rage Against the Machine template, an association that has always followed Morello. The bridge cuts into a thrash section before the track hands its final minutes to Roman Morello, the guitarist’s son, whose solo carries the song’s energy with its own momentum. It is a choice that gives the arrangement a different kind of closeness, family labour inside a collective fury.

Neither artist has ever treated political convictions as a separate category from the music. “Adjourn It” continues in that line, working its anger through structure rather than decoration.