u/coscwyite

We all know that Slipknot has been involved in rapid fire bad decision making lately.

First of all they fire Sid and do so in a very shady way. We hear about it through TMZ...then Jim tries to be the band's spokesperson and says "don't believe what you hear, just wait for info" and then next thing we know we get the "Effective immediately," post.

Next they release Arsenal which is possibly their worst song to date, and with the quality of their output having diminished severely over the years as they've lost more and more classic members, this one coming out when it did seemed to only make that more apparent.

Then Corey joins Serj on Falling In Reverse's new song, and while yes, this is more of a Corey thing than a Slipknot thing, it is worth mentioning that as the frontman of the band and seemingly one of the main decision-makers that whatever he does will reflect onto Slipknot even if it isn't technically related, and we all know that Ronnie Radke is genuinely a horribly insufferable person who has truly shitty viewpoints on most things we hear him talk about.

And now they are going on a big stadium tour with ridiculously expensive admission prices and are featuring Marilyn Manson on this tour, someone who in recent years has had quite a few domestic abuse and sexual assault allegations come out against him. How true these allegations are truly isn't fully known by the public yet one way or the other, yet the possibility that they are means the band would be willing to tour with a monster and not care what things he may or may not have done to other people. Not to mention Jim starts trying to be the mascot of the band again and comes out addressing the backlash by not addressing it at all and basically trying to remove himself and the band from all responsibility for the decision to platform Manson.

There are people who will defend this band with their last dying breath, unwilling to admit that their favourite band can fuck up. There are also people who are harsh critics and will say the band always sucked or say something akin to "you guys are just now noticing this? They've been falling off the deep end since [insert release of Vol 3 or firing of Joey here]" as if them messing up in the past should make their present any less disappointing or worth talking about.

To those people I say, we love this band and we love this band for many reasons, but the band we loved isn't the band performing under the name Slipknot today and there wasn't really an overnight switch from one to the other even if many people want to believe there was. More so, it was a slow burn that has finally gotten to the point where the Slipknot of today is unrecognizable from the Slipknot we all fell in love with. We criticize the band because we love them and want better from them. We don't want to see whatever this is, because this isn't what we loved about Slipknot. But we also don't want to just dismiss the band entirely and leave them behind for the same reason.

I have to wonder what they're going to do next that'll catch people's attention and if their next big move is going to upset people just as much as their recent ones or if they'll actually do some proper damage control and try to win back some people who've been pushed away recently.

If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them.

Posted a while back once it was finally confirmed FOR REAL for real that it was coming that I couldn't wait to hear it because the last Slipknot thing I liked was All Hope Is Gone and knowing this was all done around the same time made me feel like I'd finally hear something new from the band I might enjoy.

A lot of people on here did what people on Reddit like to do and tell me I'm so wrong for even thinking that and basically it all started to sound like "it's gonna be different so you are incapable of liking it gfy". But being someone who enjoyed MFKR, AHIG, and everything in between those, I knew it being different wasn't gonna be enough to make me hate it and if anything that'd make me more interested.

And I can't speak too soon since I haven't heard the whole thing, we've all heard 'Til We Die at this point and that's been one of my favourite Slipknot songs for years now, but I just listened to the song Is Real and I gotta say, this shit is pretty damn good. Would NEVER belong on one of their other albums but that doesn't at all take away from how much this one just grabs me, Corey was right that it's way more rock than anything but I honestly love this. The key changes are really neat, I like how it's a very rock kind of song but there's still a weird soundscape to it that makes it not sound the same as normal rock. It creates a feeling I can't really compare to anything else I've heard. The lead guitar playing in this song particularly grips me. Not fast shredding, but the note choices are just beautiful. There's parts where the guitar sounds reversed which is really cool to hear mixed in. The lady's vocals at the end are kinda haunting, not quite the same as the lady from The Memory Remains but it's a similar type of thing.

I usually never listen to full-length albums until I own them on CD. This rule of mine motivates me to collect more physical media and also makes me spend more time connecting with and relistening to certain albums I already have. So, hopefully this one gets put on CD at some point, unless the band seriously planned to just drop a few records and then forget about it. If that's really their plan here then that's incredibly disappointing cause now I really want this one. If someone bootlegs it before the band actually makes them, I might end up just getting that. It's the only way I was able to afford a copy of MFKR after all.

Final thing I want to say is YES I KNOW THEY SAID IT ISN'T REALLY A SLIPKNOT THING AND YES I KNOW THEY RELEASED IT UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME. I don't really care. I'm still mentally seeing it as a Slipknot project because it's been the "unreleased Slipknot album" for over a decade until its release. All in all whether or not it counts as Slipknot doesn't matter to me, it was made by those guys (or half of them at least) during a time when their creative output still aligned with what I like to hear and so far I really think what I'm hearing is that this is no exception.

I just hope there's some way to get it on CD soon because I'm really excited to hear the rest!