The last album that Slipknot released was over four years ago and at that point it seemed questionable that the band would continue.
Personally, I was surprised when buzz about the new album came up, but glad to see what they had come up with.
In contrast to the last album (vol. 3: Subliminal Verses) this album was incredibly heavy and each song is more punishing than the last. After the intro you are already hooked but ‘Gematria (the killing fields)’ is 6:02 minutes of glorious, brutal metal.
The single, ‘Psychosocial’, is for the most part mediocre. It doesn’t take too many risks and listening to it you can tell it’s Slipknot. Then the last minute and a half of the song is pretty incredible.
The big difference in this album compared to any of their other work is that many of the songs, although very heavy, are a lot slower. They went from an intense nu-metal to a fist pumping rock tempo. Overall it’s pretty bad ass.
If you have ever been a fan of Slipknot, than it is definitely worth giving this album a listen. This will definitely be played quite a few times at my house in the next few weeks.
This nine piece is all about presentation seeing as they always wear masks in public. It’s a little gimmicky but the masks are pretty intense and with every album they all get new masks which are cool upgrades of their old ones.
They keep the design of the original masks, then make them crazier and I guess more efficient each time. It’s kind of like when a super hero gets a costume upgrade. They get whole new digs but they keep some of the retro look.
Another big edition to this album that you won’t find in other Slipknot albums is guitar solos. Slipknot’s heavy, thrashy metal has finally been forged with some dirty, grungy solos that echo Kerry King solos from Slayer. They may not be as fast or as ridiculous as a Kerry King solo but that same metal scrapping metal producing nonsense noise is there.
In keeping with the new tradition of having an acoustic song on their album (that Slipknot just started on their last album), All Hope is Gone has ‘Snuff’. ‘Snuff’ takes the time to slow the Slipknot metal mentality down so Corey Taylor can gracefully pour his heart out.
It’s a good song but it’s hard to take this semi-love, semi-hate song seriously. Maybe the lyrics are just easier to take when he screams them over top of heavy chugging and dirty pitch harmonics.
