IN REVIEW: Slipknot - "The End, So Far"

 

If you read a certain article leading up to the release of Slipknot's seventh album and saw a red flag or two, that's understandable; when one of your band's members is making pre-emptive excuses for a drop in quality and citing all the factors that worked against them during production (and fanning the flames of inetr-band tension by claiming not to be the only member with doubts about the finished product), there might be solid evidence that there's something on this record in need of an explanation.

Slipknot waste no time providing just what Jim Root could have misgivings about; while they've been well known to wriggle out from under the fan base's expectations of heaviness that tug at their ankles like an anchor, gleefully dragging their sound outside the realm of metal despite and/or because of the fickleness of some members of that community, this time they come out of the gates defiant. Adderall starts the album off in shockingly subdued fashion, slowly building itself up from a haunting electronic backdrop akin to Nine Inch Nails circa The Fragile before taking shape over a hip-hop inspired beat and piano as Corey Taylor croons his lyrics. It's a song that focuses on its hypnotic groove and progresses with complete and utter disregard for what Slipknot have been told they should sound like. Over the course of its nearly six minutes there's very little for Jim Root to do, as Adderall is wholly devoid of the crushing riffs that one would expect in favor of setting the atmosphere.

Truth be told, I wish the rest of The End, So Far was as willing to take risks; a lot of the album's 57 minutes falls into familiar clichés and/or goes out of the way to prove the band are still metal. Not that the results are bad, by any means; The Dying Song (Time to Sing) ticks all the boxes for a Slipknot single with some melodic clean vocals, a classic guttural run-up and a headbang-inducing verse that hearkens back to the early years (which turns out to be one of their favourite party tricks on this album). It's a banger, of course, albeit one that doesn't attempt progression of any kind and seemingly exists (within the context of the album) as a counter to the wildly experimental song that preceded it, an implied "sorry we got weird, remember this sound?".

The Chapeltown Rag, the first single we got from this album almost a year ago, sees Slipknot going hard with some intense drumming and a higher quotient of roaring from Taylor; its chorus tries to force in some melody, but it just doesn't take. This is followed by current single Yen, which would have been this album's pop-leaning outlier if not for Adderall; in the storied tradition of Snuff and Killpop, this is the kind of single that Slipknot always seems to have in their back pocket, a lovelorn ballad with sinister overtones that reveals its ugliness as it goes. Then it's time to re-establish the heaviness, which leads to the chugging riffs and furious blast beats of Hive Mind back-to-back with the sinewy nu-metal swagger of Warranty; both are technically impressive songs that don't seem to have any ambitions beyond their heaviness.

The second half starts out just a bit odd with the backmasking, electronic whirs and clicks that open Medicine for the Dead before the song slowly unfurls in a way that surprisingly bears a passing resemblance to Tool (or, perhaps, not so surprisingly; The End, So Far producer Joe Barresi has famously worked with Maynard & co. previously); as the song moves forward more layers are revealed, and the end result has exploration, melody, tension and payoff. It builds a promising, atmospheric momentum for the album that carries over into the Slipknot-filtered blues of Acidic, a brooding and intriguing song that isn't afraid to use some slight pyschedelia, a scorching guitar solo or a stark, sparse breakdown in the service of creating one of the most unique entries in the band's discography to date.

With two songs that stray from the norm, the focus comes back to doing what's expected; Heirloom brings back that well-worn heaviness but features more clean vocals and essentially winds up a Stone Sour song with busier drumming. The atmospheric touches come back for H377 (two thoughts: nice Slayer homage during the intro, and can you believe this song was named by adults), only to be snuffed out for a shout-rapped verse that feels lifted from the year 2000; I'm sure old school fans will gravitate toward this one, but isn't this the style that Slipknot has agonized over branching out from in the years since? Sure, it's fine for what it does (by which I mean "evoking nostalgia", of course), but it's probably the most dated sounding song on the album.

De Sade aims for more of that brooding, bruising balladry, mostly succeeding in its intentions and featuring the record's most dynamic vocal. You can feel the outburst coming and, when it hits three and a half minutes in, it's expected but effective. This leaves just Finale, which sends listeners off with another ballad, this time featuring a string section and a choir; there's also a gradual build in this song, as well as an old school, almost Ghost-adjacent cheese factor at play on the chorus. The closing two minutes ratchets up the intensity before dropping everything but some synths and the choir, making for as suitable an ending as one could hope for.

Maybe now that they've fulfilled their contract with (and already announced their intention to leave) Roadrunner, their label home since 1999, Slipknot will be bolstered by their newfound freedom and create something that's true to what they want to do; The End, So Far gets very interesting by times, but just can't stop itself from beating the same keg drum they've always beaten, overcompensating with nostalgia every time they stray too far from their genre restraints whether under pressure from the label, fans and/or internal tensions. It's seemingly an album of two minds, one that wants to prove they're more than you think they are and one that wants to reassure you that nothing's changed. It's not their most uninteresting album, nor their most experimental, instead existing in a frustrating limbo.

There's a balance to be struck here, and that balance was struck beautifully just three years ago on We Are Not Your Kind, but the divide has deepened here. That said, maybe Jim Root has a point; according to his statements, this album was created under varying degrees of duress thanks to the pandemic, lack of pre-production, deadlines and uncertainty. The thing is, even before you take all of the limitations into account, Slipknot usually takes longer to make records; the gap between this and their previous records is the shortest since the gap between Iowa and The Subliminal Verses, which were released by a much younger and hungrier band. Adding almost twenty years and all of the obstacles (both external and internal) does absolutely no favours to the record, and it does feel rushed by comparison. Maybe they were thinking ahead to being free of their contractual obligations, maybe the label was eager to get one more tug at the teat of their cash cow; whatever the case, here's hoping greater care is taken for whatever comes next because The End, So Far, despite showing signs of promise, just isn't up to snuff. 

September 30, 2022 • Roadrunner

Highlights The Dying Song (Time to Sing) • Medicine for the Dead • Acidic