System Of A Down have given another update on their long-awaited new album – with optimism fading as it looks like ‘it’s not happening’, NME said.

The metal veterans released five acclaimed albums before they split in 2006. They then reunited in 2010 for a series of world tours and to work on new material. Now seven years later, the album is yet to surface – and it looks like it could still be some time.

Despite saying earlier this year that they were ‘definitely’ making an album and had 15 songs ready, now bassist Shavo Odadjian has cast doubt over progress.

“I know, I’m waiting for a new album too,” he said not a Q&A with fans. “It’s not happening, I don’t know…I don’t know when it’s gonna be. Not right now…”

SOAD’s recent tour has seen the band play headline slots at Download festival and Rock Werchter.

“With an unrelenting 28 songs, System Of A Down barely paused for breath as they ripped through an onslaught of speed-metal insanity,” wrote NME of their Rock Werchter headline show. “Once calm and distant pockets of the crowd erupt into circle pits for ‘Suite-Pee’ and ‘Prison Song’ before the dark humour of ‘Violent Pornography’ showcases their unique playful side. Naturally ‘Chop Suey’ and ‘Toxicity’ prove to be the centre-pieces of the set, but ‘Bounce’, ‘Sugar’ and ‘B.Y.O.B.’ take the band’s twisted adventure in sound to its most unhinged.

“Werchter gives the love back in spades, before frontman Serj Tankian declares them “the best audience of the whole tour”. It can be a hackneyed and too often repeated cliche, but we believe them – at least because it’s what the band deserved.”