As published in the Daily Helmsman
It’s been 6 years since Nu-Metal innovators Slipknot released their 2008 album “All Hope is Gone”. Since then, the Iowa nine-piece have gone through quite a bit. In 2010 the band lost their bass player Paul Gray to an accidental overdose of morphine and morphine substitutes, and after a period of grief finally returned to the stage during a European tour in 2011. In 2012 they both released a best-of compilation and started the annual Knotfest concert festival, but the following year parted ways with drummer of 18 years Joey Jordison. Writing and production of their fifth album, “.5: The Gray Chapter” had already begun and as of late October 2014 the band streamed it through SoundCloud, Itunes, and physical copies worldwide.
What Slipknot has compiled on “.5” is a monster of a cd. With 14 tracks, the album clocks in at about an hour and ten minutes of seemingly nonstop throwback riffage to their earlier sound and releases like the famously heavy “Iowa” album. The result is, at first, refreshing and makes sense- what better way to honor your past and appease your core fanbase than to return to your roots (albeit with more pristine production and a more developed sense of song structure)? However, as the gargantuan of a metal record presses on, similarities between guitar parts and that same sense of song structure become a little tiresome by even the end of the first quarter.
If you’ve been itching for a new collection of heavy-hitting Slipknot tunes, songs like “The Negative One” or “Nomadic” will appease but tracks like “AOV” will actually exceed expectations completely. With it’s sound-effect assisted buildups leading into Lamb of God-esque 16th note double bass drops and Corey Taylor’s unique lyrical flows screaming phrases like “Now the Community doesn’t feel any better than it used to be. I want to be a judge in a criminal case - you covered up. Did you cultivate?” tracks like these change the pace and elevate the feel of the album in spots where it needs it.
“Custer” also proves that Slipknot can pull off “intense” quite well at this point in their career, on a dime even, and as Taylor whispers in a sultry voice “Half alive and stark-raving free and maligned for encroaching on the purpose of this commercial- free interruption...due to the prolific nature of this statement, listener aggression is advised” over charging, quickly-muted bass notes the listener is both wonderfully perplexed by Taylor’s strange use of diction and eager to hear the percussive crescendo of a verse that flows into the most non-melodic yet most memorable refrain on the record.
It’s important to note the misspelling of “grey” in “The Gray Chapter” as a reference to the last name of Slipknot’s deceased bassist, and there are several lyrical nods to his legacy and the emotional impact of his departure throughout the album. “Skeptic” finds Corey Taylor screaming “Hiroshima on a Sunday. You had a gift. You were a gift.” and “The world will never know a man as amazing as you.”
What also shines on this album is how, despite the absence of figurehead and amazing musician Joey Jordison, the percussionists tastefully fill the sonic spectrum of songs like “Goodbye” (another tribute to Grey) with bells; intros and outros to tunes like “XIX” with ambient static-y noises, and various sections of heavier songs with pounding, boomy toms that seem more prevalent in the mix that previous ‘Knot records. “.5: The Gray Chapter” is a Slipknot album for the fans, for their fallen friend, and by the heart of a band accomplishing what they probably set out to do about two decades ago in some Iowan rehearsal space; just jam for a little over an hour.
The full album on Youtube:
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