Slipknot

We Are Not Your Kind

Written by: PP on 07/03/2020 06:30:30

The new Slipknot album "We Are Not Your Kind" was released last year and has fulfilled most fan expectations for a new Slipknot record. At the same time, it features some of their most experimental and daring material to date, thus presenting a surprisingly well-balanced, interesting effort for a late-career release like this one. If you thought they were slowing down to release career extensions, "We Are Not Your Kind" is certainly not one of those.

"Insert Coin" serves as a perfect foreshadowing intro to be used on the live circuit that explodes directly into signature-style Slipknot on "Unsainted": massive, arena-filling clean vocal chorus showcasing Corey Taylor's impressive pipes, while the verses feature thick, muscular arena metal delivered with a high-octane tempo and aggressively screamed vocals, thus wrapping together in almost factory-like precision every element that makes Slipknot a great band to some, hated for others. It's nu-metal in a nutshell - a ragged, almost rapped style of pseudo-heavy, but there's no denying that the formula works, especially live. "Birth Of The Cruel" likewise delivers a classic Slipknot expression with a slowly forward-rolling wrecking ball, this time featuring a slower tempo and more atmospherics instead.

But already "Death Because Of Death" introduces an electronic, experimental interlude with jungle-style rhythmic percussion, serving as a prelude of the experimental work to come later on the record. "Nero Forte" is again a relatively 'standard' Slipknot track with aggressive vocals and crunchy guitars, and similarly, "Red Flag" is a muscular, heavy-duty track rammed with energy and buzzsaw-like conviction, drawing as much from hardcore as it does from nu-metal. In fact, anyone who doesn't think Slipknot is metal needs to listen to this track.

But here's where things start getting a little weird. "Critical Darling", for instance, is a six-minute mammoth, an electronic, haunting showcase of experimentation that starts off like an acoustic ballad with a somber atmosphere before eventually transitioning into its pummeling "burn, burn, burn" lyrics, thus displaying Slipknot in a more ambitious light from a songwriting perspective. "Orphans" follows suit: a progressive track that doubles as a sociopolitical commentary with its "everyone has something, someone here has everything" parts, but it is its multi-faceted segmentation that makes it a rather interesting track for Slipknot.

Then you have the ending of the album, which features three more lengthy cuts. "My Pain", for example, delves deep into avant-garde, bringing forth a daunting, echoing soundscape where the electronic samples really come into the light. Same with "Not Long For This World", it experiments with diverse samples and effects before transitioning into a hard rock track.

When you put the two styles together, you have a great balance between the big, arena-sized hits that people are going to sing along to, as well as some more challenging, complicated material. This is Slipknot maturing and showing us a hitherto unknown side. We should praise them for reaching outside their well-defined box.

8

Download: Unsainted, Red Flag, Birth Of The Cruel, Orphans
For the fans of: Five Finger Death Punch, koRn, Disturbed
Listen: Facebook

Release date 09.08.2019
Roadrunner

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