albums and tracks

Editor's rating

When they stamped on to the scene, Slipknot's image - a mob-strength insane menagerie of masks and Clockwork Orange boiler suits - was considered over the top even by the dubious standards of heavy metal.

It earned their music an audience however, even if it was largely composed of puberty-stricken boys and the fighting men of the US Marine Corps. Some 10 years on from their first album, and four years since they last committed anything to disc, Slipknot have matured - but not mellowed.

All Hope Is Gone demonstrates that behind the frankly scary, expressionless masks they adopt on stage, there's a community of skilled musicians, perceptive songwriters and refreshingly experimental sound-crafters.

Their musical attack is as relentless as ever but now comes laced with dollops of melody and lumpy anthemic choruses guaranteed to send a mosh pit into delirium.

It takes time to deliver complex ideas, and some of AHIG's tracks - including the tarry, worrying, Nine Inch Nails-esque 'Gehenna', and turbo-fuelled 'Gematria (The Killing Name)' - run past the six-minute mark in order to create the ideal atmosphere for their story.

It takes studio nous and experience to make everything so loud while still rendering the vocals clearly enough for the lyrics to have an effect. It takes a phenomenal amount of effort for a band clearly aimed at the live arena to create something which so splendidly captures the excitement of their stage show and yet demands to be played over and over again. Not one for the Belle & Sebastian fans, then, but the perfect soundtrack to unspeakable acts of carnage.

Al Spicer

Picture: Wenn