After a solid 6 years of doing whatever they wanted to do, recouping, and becoming brothers once more, Slipknot has released their first album since 2008’s “All Hope Is Gone”, and it’s one good f**king album. “.5: The Gray Chapter” is what even lead singer Corey Taylor referred to as a combination of the melodic sound from “Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses” and the sheer brutality from “Iowa”. And that is exactly what this album is 100%. From the beginning song “XIX” there isn’t the brutality that I mentioned, but there is certainly a melodic factor there that is very evident and when the song leads into the next one, “Sarcastrophe”, which then busts out the more fast-paced Slipknot feel that true fans loved and still do. But we all knew that the album would have both the melody and brutality now didn’t we? Because first “The Negative One” showed us the brutality, and then “The Devil In I”showed us that mixed with the melody. And most of us loved it, but then there are those little s**ts out there who didn’t because of some of the dumbest reasons ever, but I won’t get into that. If you had to ask me what my absolute favorite song was I couldn’t give a single song because (1) I think the entire album is f**king great and (2) it’d be really hard. But if I had to choose, I’d choose three songs: “Skeptic”, “AOV”, and “Custer”. “Why those three?” you might be asking, and it’s because I find them to be the most interesting to me who is someone that loves brutality in any metal song but mixed with just the right amount of melody and uniqueness (is that a word? Is now!) that I just can’t help but love it. And don’t get me wrong, the entire album does that and Slipknot did exceedingly well, but I just like those three the tiniest bit more. Now as you can imagine, “.5: The Gray Chapter” was #1 on iTunes and Billboard the first week it came out, and with good reason. And if you can’t think of a good reason, then go listen to the entire album for FREE on YouTube here and then go buy the special edition on iTunes here!
