Artist: Slipknot
Title: We Are Not Your Kind
Genre: Metal
Release Date: 9th August 2019
Label: Roadrunner
Album Review
When I saw SLIPKNOT wearing their new masks at Rock im Park this summer, I thought “So dramatically changed masks - something epic is coming soon” and soon it was August 9th 2019, time for ‘We Are Not Your Kind’. The standalone single ‘All out of life’ cannot be found on the album giving the fans a glimpse of hope for a new album but gave the latest release its name. ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ is SLIPKNOT’s clear message that they are not slowing down after 20 years shaking the stages on this planet.
You get the whole thing started with a more or less pure instrumental intro. ‘Insert Coin’ starts with a buzzing alarm that will speed your pulse up until keyboards get you in a psychedelic mood. A horror-trip? After more than one minute of these sound effects Corey Taylor sings in his clear voice “I’m counting all the killers”. A warning? More and more sounds evoke, a new alarm sets in, like a civil-alarm. Without a break the song flows into ‘Unsainted’, a song that partly really surprised me, with the children’s chorus singing “You can’t always get what you want” while SLPIKNOT are furiously performing in their grittiest Nu-Metal attitude, one of the best songs on the new album in my books. Corey Taylor must have been at his most miserable and angriest while recording this album and it reminds me a lot of SLIPKNOT’s early days.
‘Death Because Of Death’ is one more short instrumental song, again psychedelic sounds underline Corey’s clean singing “Death because of death because of you”, leading directly into ‘Nero Forte’. Hammering guitars and fantastic drums will make you bang your head, if you want or not. Corey’s rapping hammering in your ears and the guitars creating an “Iowa-style chainsaw massacre” in the background until the chorus performs “A hope like yours won’t help me now.” SLIPKNOT at their best. ‘Liars Funeral’ starts melancholic with Taylor’s clear voice singing you would rather expect on a STONE SOUR album, before he starts growling. For SLPIKNOT standards the song is really slow, stomping beats and clear rhythm shifts might not be to the taste of hard-core fans. The outro once more is melodic and melancholic.
‘Red Flag’ is one of the most astonishing songs on the album and shows that SLIPKNOT really made use of their whole range of talents. Getting started with what could nearly be Disco-sound Corey Taylor’s growls and hammering rapping lines combined with the bands death-metal riffing and what could be called punk-percussion, the whole thing can bees seen as a demonstration of that SLIPKNOT don’t care what people think about them, as long as they stick together. ‘What’s Next’ once more is more or less an instrumental intro, reminding me of a children music clock first accompanied by a guitar first, an element that is often used in horror films, before something really bloody is going to happen and there they are, the chainsaw-sounds just before the song leads into ‘Spiders’, the children-music-clock songs gone, being replaced by keyboards, clearer and heavier. Okay that’s SLIPKNOT, but then you start doubting it because from now on you listen to a song with a Funk attitude. ‘Spiders’ once more Is not really a song you would expect of SLIPKNOT, it sound nearly like New Wave and even a little Goth in the chorus and with lots of what could be nearly clear voice from Taylor.
‘Not Long For This World’ again is a rather slow song for a SLIPKNOT album. If you listen to the lyrics performed in clear voice, might make you swallow hard.
“So decide, tell me how I'm gonna die
‘Cause I’ve already gone away
Decide, tell me how you loved a lie
It wasn’t really hard to see
Hard to see
Not long for this world“
‘Solway Firth’ is the last song on the album and the first lines is “Today, up on this hill, I’m counting all the killers” a reference to the first song on the album? Corey raps and growls underlined by alarming electronic sounds with machine-gun style drums in the background. The last lines of the song are:
“I guess I got what I wanted
Another needle in the back through purified scarification
It wasn't somebody else, you… did it to me
You want a real smile?
I haven’t smiled in years”
So while SLIPKNOT’s masterminds were creating the brilliant and sometimes really experimental music for SLIPKNOT’s standards, Corey Taylor obviously had a really bad time. The outcome he put into the lyrics and the vocals, the result: a bloody brilliant album. SLIPKNOT are back and maybe better than ever before.
Tracklist
01. Insert Coin
02. Unsainted
03. Birth of the Cruel
04. Death Because of Death
05. Nero Forte
06. Critical Darling
07. Liar’s Funeral
08. Red Flag
09. What’s Next
10. Spiders
11. Orphan
12. My Pain
13. Not Long for This World
14. Solway Firth
Line-up
Corey Taylor - Lead and backing vocals, production
Mick Thomson - Guitars, production
Jim Root - Guitars, production
Alessandro Venturella - Bass, production
Jay Weinberg - Drums, production
Shawn “Clown” Crahan - Custom percussion, backing vocals, production, art direction, photography
Sid Wilson - Turntables, keyboards, production
Craig “133” Jones - Samples, media, keyboards, production
Website
www.slipkot1.com
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 10
Sound: 9
Total: 9.5 / 10
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