In their last album with Roadrunner, Slipknot seem quite different when compared to the band we saw in the European festival circuit, including Greece, this past summer. Another aspect of their self-proclaimed ‘duality’ perhaps? On the one hand, live, an unstoppable machine that’s based on their tried and true classics, and on the other, in the studio, experienced songwriters experimenting and creating more and more endoscopic songs.
The 9 have the ‘luxury’ to start things off quietly, with the atmospheric ‘Adderall’, while freeing up space for Corey Taylor’s clean vocals in ‘Medicine for the Dead’, or even revisiting ‘Vol.3’ on ‘Heirloom’. There are crescendos as well, ‘Warranty’ being one of them, but the mid-tempo stuff is getting the lion’s share, more so than on the slightly more balanced and heavier ‘We Are Not Your Kind’.
With Joe Baressi replacing Greg Fidelman as a producer, the Iowa megastars have created a record with variety and unexplored musical territory, keeping the band in the ranks of the elite. They didn’t write songs that fit the category I mention in the first paragraph, but at this stage of their career, they don’t seem to need to anymore.
