Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

Released - 08/09/19

Country of Origin - USA

Number of Tracks - 14

I don't buy many albums that are outright new releases, in terms of being brand new material from bands. It isn't that I don't want too, I just have such a huge backlog of older stuff I want and a lack of following anything more recent that I tend not too. On occasion though there is a release a two that catches my attention. It took eight months, but my quota for the year has been met with Children of Bodom's Hexed and today's subject.

Slipknot and I have an interesting history. The band got me into heavy metal back around the time Psychosocial was first released and from there I dove head first (to the despair of my parents) into their discography and the genre as a whole. Over a decade later though I like the band, but nowhere near as much as I once did. In that time I cut my listening of their music down to two albums and a handful of songs and a band that used to be my favorite no longer even ranks in my top ten of musicians/bands.

My lack of full blown enjoyment and investment sort of changed though this year. News of their sixth album peaked my interest some, but it was not until the release of the singles Unsainted and Solway Firth that I got rather invested. True they were promising to return to their darker harder sound (a promise they throw out EVERY album since Vol.3 The Subliminal Verses), but I was interested. So interested that I bought the album the day after it released. Three run listening sessions later and I have my thoughts nicely ready to go into a review from both a critiquing point of view and a general enjoyment point of view. So with all of that said why don't we jump into it.

Tracklisting

1. Insert Coin

2. Unsainted

3. Birth of the Cruel

4. Death Because of Death

5. Nero Forte

6. Critical Darling

7. A Liar's Funeral

8. Red Flag

9. What's Next

10. Spiders

11. Orphan

12. My Pain

13. Not Long For This World

14. Solway Firth

Over the past years Slipknot have consistently prided themselves as well as inform the general public that their sound has matured and continues to evolve. Personally speaking, this has lead to less enjoyment of their material if only because at times it comes off as them just throwing everything including the kitchen sink into the songs creating overly long and chaotic messy music. That said I can report, again in my opinion, that We Are Not Your Kind contains very little of this. I will say that some songs definitely go on too long and those extra soundscapes could have been used for more intermission like tracks, but overall the album isn't overly experimental.

What experimental is on show is done in the name of trying to create atmosphere and mood more so than trying to sound super duper technical and progressive. In that regard I gotta hand it to the band as, honestly, it kind of works. There's more soundscape and ambient craftsmanship here which, when combined with the band's usual extreme metal sound, creates an eerie product. Along with that is Corey Taylor's wonderful melody work which adds more the atmosphere even more. I remember an old interview in which the band cited Fear Factory and the heavier sound of Ministry as some of their influences and I feel like this album more than any previous one shows this off the most.

In general the record is some nice solid work from the band. Can some of the songs go on a little too long? For sure and I wish those cases would have been tightened up more. However those are the only true criticisms I have with the CD. Yes there are songs I am not super fond of and doubt I'd randomly throw on to just listen too, but the songs that stick out really stick out and I overall enjoy listening to the entire album in a sitting (so I guess according to Jim Root, the album achieved its goal). Good musicianship, good mood, good atmosphere, good vocals. Good simply sums it up.

Poe's Favorites

Unsainted

Nero Forte

Orphan

Not Long For This World

Solway Firth

Slipknot as I've said before is the band responsible for getting me into heavy metal many many years ago, and for a long time they were easily my favorite band. But as the years went on I started to like them less and less, sticking with Slipknot and Iowa for my listening pleasures and only listening to an ever decreasing number of songs off of the albums after those two. Yet when the video for Unsainted came out I found that audible spark that attracted me to the band in the first place and so I became cautiously hyped for We Are Not Your Kind (more so after the video for Solway Firth dropped). I found myself more so when the band continually stated what they have since All Hope is Gone released over ten years ago; that this (each record since Vol.3 The Subliminal Verses) would be a return to heavier roots found on Slipknot and Iowa while continuing to mature and evolve technically as a group.

While All Hope is Gone was honest to god trite and .5 The Gray Chapter took a little too long to get going, my personal opinion is that We Are Not Your Kind is the best in this evolutionary chain. In fact, and this is entirely personal, I think the album is their best work after Iowa. Is it their best? No, it isn't.

Like I said the previous statement is entirely personal, but in We Are Not Your Kind I think Slipknot honestly has some of their best material to date. Aggressively atmospheric, catchy, and moody (with the occasional slip into edgelord village), We Are Not Your Kind is a new release album I am/was more than happy to pay for.

We Are Not Your Kind/Present era Slipknot