Slipknot - .5: The Gray Chapter (2014)
After the lackluster "All Hope is Gone" followed by bassist Paul Gray's death in 2010 and the band firing drummer Joey Jordison in 2013, who I've been told that this specific duo wrote a -lot- of Slipknot's material instrumentally and guided it, it really did appear that the album's title held true: Slipknot was pretty much falling apart at the seams and it seemed like no one really even gave a shit anymore outside of potentially not having the ability to hear songs from the self-titled and "Iowa" live. I know I didn't really care because I had felt let down by the band enough as it was, so I had the opinion that it'd be fine if they just called it a day and quit, because to me, they had already earned it and weren't going to be soaring with flying colors anytime soon. Well, wouldn't you know it: The band recruited a new bassist (Alessandro Venturella of Cry For Silence/Krokodil) and a new drummer (Jay Weinberg of Against Me!/Madball) and came back swinging like they never even went down for the round in the first place. In fact, when they dropped "The Negative One" unexpectedly in 2014, I stopped mentally filing them as "one of those bands I stopped giving a shit about when I turned 18" and back into "Holy fuck how did I ever stop listening to these guys??" because here's the thing: Even if you can do intense guitar solos/wankery, the lowest growls, etc, very few metal bands rival Slipknot in pure anger.
For the first half of the album, this album is basically jam-packed with instant classics. Sure, "XIX" is kind of an uneventful but emotional opener, but right after that comes the heavy "Sarcastrophe" which features Corey Taylor's maniacal scream-to-laugh, "AOV" that has excellent drumming and great clean vocals by Corey Taylor for the chorus, the "GET YOUR HORNS UP" stadium anthem "The Devil in I", the evil but oddly beautiful ballad "Killpop", and the list could go on.. Saving two of the best tracks towards the end of the album, "Custer" which is as heavy and maniacal as anything the band has ever done, and features a sample of a fucking screaming goat for fuck's sake, and "The Negative One" which is an absolute fucking bone-crusher of a song that showcases everything the band can accomplish on a brutality level. The entire band sounds on point during this album: Corey Taylor's clean and harsh vocals sound so much better than they did on virtually any other Slipknot release, the often in-the-background DJ Sid Wilson and sampler Craig Jones play a much larger role on this album than any prior, and new drummer Jay Weinberg is just as great, if not even fucking BETTER than Joey Jordison! It's honestly incredible to see a band jump back on their feet so effortlessly after suffering the loss of two of their most important members.
The production of this album is pretty fuckin' good too. When the riffs want to be powerful, they destroy your ears, and when things chill out to be a bit more ambient, such as in the verses of "The Devil in I" and "Killpop", you can hear every instrument perfectly, not overwhelming one another in the mix. In a band full of nine guys losing their shit, they finally found a production style that allows it to sound like all nine guys actively put in some work into the album, even if, as always, the custom percussion can be a bit hard to detect if it's not directly in your face. That being said, not everything on this album is perfect. "Skeptic" is boringly poppy and too on-the-nose lyrically, "The One That Kills the Least" is just.. Well, to begin with, what the fuck is that song title? And don't get me started on "The Burden" or "Override", although none of those can compare to Shawn 'Clown' Crahan's cringeworthy pseudo-spooky ramblings on "Prepare for Hell". However, no matter the few clunky tracks this album has, it has songs that'll fucking annihilate your ass and remind you that even if they were just a gateway for you to get into heavier, more obscure bands, Slipknot is your stepdad again, they're fucking YOUR mom and you WILL respect them. If you're looking for some technical death metal album, there are millions of other albums to check out, but if you want a slab of some really enjoyable, catchy, and hateful music, you really can't go wrong with this.
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
