Me? Talking about Slipknot? Really? Well, my dear readers I'm nothing if not completely predictable, but don't worry, I'm also cooking up an article about the beauty of live music and performance for the 'Live Reviews' section of the blog, so watch this space!
If your an obsessed fan like me, you would have been hearing about the prospects of new music from Slipknot for a while, even seemingly months after the release of 'We Are Not Your Kind' (Which ill be referring to as WANYK for conveniences sake) in 2019. But, in a recent interview Shawn Crahan confirmed that Slipknot are in the studio and making new music. He said '“Great music has been written" and in the context of talking about his fellow bandmate Corey Taylor added “my favourite singer on the planet has sang the songs”. He had a lot to say about Taylor and his delivery of the new Slipknot tracks, saying "[Corey] Taylor is on some level of singing that I’ve never heard him,". Now if that wont get your Slipknot sense tingling, nothing will. We've been listening to Corey since 1999, and for over 20 years have always been astounded by the versatility of his vocal range - but if the praise is coming from Clown himself, then you know that Taylor has seriously upped his game (if that is even possible!) “We’re in LA. That’s about all I can say." He continued "We’re making God music, and we’re having a blast. And it’s just great to be around everybody, and everybody is in the best mood I’ve ever seen… I feel like we’ve come full circle. I feel like I have all these memories of when we started. I feel like a kid again. It’s a lot of fun right now.” Usually, Slipknot hate to compare themselves to their old work, believing that each album cycle is new growth, but Crahan seems to be alluding to the fact that this new album is seemingly like "Iowa" which has a lot of fans exited.
(Shawn "Clown" Crahan of Slipknot performs on February 11, 2020 in Milan, Italy. (Picture: Francesco Prandoni/Getty Images)
Corey Taylor has also been interviewed about the next cycle too, and not only has he talked about his new approach to singing but also his mask. Me and Clown have talked about something really, really cool, if we can pull it off,” Corey hints. “There’s a chance that it could be conceptual, if we can really do it right.” He went on to say in an interview with 955KLOS that “The music is brilliant. It expands on what we did with We Are Not Your Kind – it kind of blossoms from there – but the great thing is, it’s got not only that, but it’s got everything that you would want from a Slipknot project". Exiting stuff, if its anything like WANYK then we are in for a treat, and with a nice sprinkling of Iowa, were looking at an album that's like a musical fist fight. "There’s the heavy stuff, there’s the dark stuff, there’s the melodic stuff, there’s the weird stuff." Taylor adds "We have so many different flavours that we can play with that, now, at this point, it’s just us kind of mixing and matching and seeing what excites us." That as a statement is just brilliant. Slipknot are finally free of their record deal with Roadrunner, which means they can finally do whatever they want, and make some money that they might not have seen due to their deal. The guys deserve creative freedom, and I can't wait to see what comes next.
(Slipknot live at The O2, London. Credit: Jenn Five/NME)
Now, I mentioned masks, and boy have i got a lot to talk about. Lets talk about Corey first. He said proudly in an interview around a month ago "Its gonna fucking scare kids! It's so gnarly!". Adding excitedly that its "Very disturbing", and that “It’s important for it to be a reflection of who we are in that music." Artistically this is nothing new, but its the next sentence that makes me the most exited “It’s gonna be hard to look at. And it’ll probably be my favourite mask that I’ve ever put together. It’s little bits and pieces of things that have intrigued me, of masks that I’ve had in the past." So somehow it ties in all of his older masks, and that has some brilliant images brewing in my mind, something like the All Hope is Gone mask with the Iowa dreadlocks and Vol.3 broken nose. Now onto Shawn, which actually has some more immediate effects. As now Knotfest is coming to Iowa, some members of the cast after the lockdowns will undoubtedly have some new looks to show off onstage. This is all speculation, but some certain images have been leaked of either what people are referring to as the WANYK Pt.2 mask, because it is pretty similar to the WANYK chrome mask with some new upgrades, or its his mask for the new album cycle. Have a look at the image below. Notice there's no credit because its circulated so much I have no idea what the original source is. But I did find these image from u/LordThompson666 on the Slipknot reddit.
And for the inside angle...
I love this new mask, because it continues Clowns story, and i think finally shows his healing. If this really is his new mask, notice that it lacks the scarification the WANYK mask had. If you think about his old masks, he went from the classic clown to the bandaged 'Tumour' variant. His masks went from wounded clown to covered clown as he mourned the deaths of respective family members that influenced his leather mask, and his bandage mask. Both locked him in his own world, where he was completely in his own head and couldn’t speak to the press. He tortured himself through these times, and eventually found some peace. His .5 look lacked facial features, but was a part of the healing process as it began to take shape with facepaint, creating some sort of facial features as the clown regenerated. But with WANYK I sensed in the mask a new feeling. Hope. He has earned the chrome, the feeling of cleanliness and new horizons. Even though he has the scars, he wears them because that's part of his story. And this new variant shows the wounds have healed, and the Clown can finally begin to smile again.
So new and exiting horizons for Slipknot, and ones I'm extremely exited for. Not only is the music going to be new, and diverse, but the masks are making big promises that I'm dead certain they will deliver on. The album has no set release date, but its rumoured to be around late next year, so lets wait until then. Ill keep you updated until then.
Comentários