Label: Roadrunner Records
Released: 9th August 2019
Rating: ★★★★
On Slipknot’s sixth outing, expectations are high. The lead up to ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ has been littered with calls for the band to return to ‘Iowa’ levels of heavy, and it seems they’re not too far from it.
Where on previous efforts the opening track has often been an atmospheric torture device, grabbing listeners by the throat and forcing them into the band’s headspace, here ‘Insert Coin’ is a glimpse of a grander picture, a vast expanse that begs for exploration.
Lead single ‘Unsainted’, with its Rolling Stones ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ style choir beginning, is something of a diversion from ‘WANYK”s immersive derision into utter chaos, and moments of intensity like ‘Spiders’, and ‘Liar’, with its guttural call of, well, “Liar!”
It’s not a completely clean sweep; the last few tracks clock in at over six minutes apiece, though their pay off is worth the wait. ‘Not Long For This World’ finds itself a redux in the brutality, while the haunting opening of ‘Solway Firth’ brings everything to a close with mammoth force. From the warning alarm sample to the vicious guitar attacks, percussion from Clown and the powerhouse of Corey Taylor’s voice; it’s a rush through every era.
Slipknot have always come out on top with anthems for the disenfranchised, and ‘WANYK’ could quite possibly be their most cohesive and immersive chapter to date.
