The Bar

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1. Slipknot
2. Gently
3. Do Nothing Bitch Slap
4. Only One
5. Tattered & Torn
6. Confessions
7. Some Feel
8. Killers are Quiet

Official Bar Score: 

Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat is one of the most diverse recordings the band has done in its tenure and features influences that range from thrash to rock to rap to straight on funk. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons this album is so different is that it is the first and only album they did featuring original singer Anders Colsefini. In fact the only members featured on this album that are still in the line-up are Shawn Crahan, Paul Gray and Joey Jordinson.

Released on Halloween 1996 the band who had become known for their rowdy shows at a Reggae club now had a demo for their fans to get behind. The band named after the opening track on their demo was the product of being stuck in the middle of nowhere and wanted to become something.

The album while diverse is also very noticeably not as heavy as their latter material. Songs like Slipknot, Gently, and Some Feel have a more traditional metal feel to them opting to focus on slow buidling riffs that turn in very straight forward metal songs rather than coming out of the gate fast and furious.

On the Do Nothing Bitch Slap and Confessions the band plays around with thick funk bass lines and on the latter track as well as Only One vocalist/percussionist Anders plays around with a rapid fire almost rap style vocal.

Though the stand out track on the entire album and perhaps one of the most epic Slipknot tracks to date is the over twenty minute Killers Are Quiet. A track that has a slow build that moves the song along at a crawl with Anders bellowing out the lines “Cycle of life and death supposedly/goes ’round and round’ yet it stops with me/Glorious hunters of my faith I have sinned/Killers are quiet like the breath of the wind. The song then builds into something much heavier as it comes to a climax.

The album as a whole has a little too much going on at times for its own good though as with only 8 tracks that are all over the place it’s hard to get an idea for the identity of the band, though maybe that was the point the whole time.

Still worth it for Slipknot, Gently, and Killers Are Quiet if nothing else.

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1. 742617000027
2. (Sic)
3. Eyeless
4. Wait And Bleed
5. Surfacing
6. Spit It Out
7. Tattered & Torn
8. Frail Limb Nursery
9. Purity
10. Liberate
11. Prosthetics
12. No Life
13. Diluted
14. Only One
15. Scissors

Official Bar Score: 

Having expanded into a nine piece band and with the late edition to Jim Root as a replacement for their previous guitar player (Root came in so late he didn’t even make the album cover) the band now had the line-up it would maintain for the next decade set in stone.

In edition to the craziness of becoming a nine piece band, the guys had also recruited the front man for an Iowa rock band Stone Sour whom Slipknot had played their second gig with. The move came about as a way to add more melody to the vocals and it eventually led to former vocalist Anders quitting the band following becoming just a backing vocalist.

Corey Taylor most certainly added more vocal variance to the disc and laid his styles on top of music that had become much heavier in the 2 1/2 years since Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat had come out.

With their first official label release the band also decided to rework a few older tracks. Slipknot had been sped up, given new lyrics and renamed (Sic) though some of the original arrangements remained. Tattered & Torn is the lease changed of all the tracks remade off of their debut. Only one also kept the major parts of the song, again opting for lyrical changes and a quicker pace.

This time out the band weren’t quite as diverse mainly opting for pure speed but Wait and Bleed managed to show their softer side and the first look at Taylor’s melodic side while Spit it Out and Only One would once again make use of a rapid fire almost rap style delivery.

The album was a huge step in the right direction but still featured somewhat of a downward slop in quality towards the end of the disc as some of the tracks come off as pure filler.

A bit of a fun fact if you will, the intro Frail Limb Nursery and the awesome Purity which is based on a story the band had read about a kidnapping where removed from later pressings of the album and replaced for the more melodic Me, Inside.

Still the band managed to create something crazy, chaotic and issue some songs that would become staples in mainstream heavy music.

The band also gave a hint as to the direction of their next album in the way of the hidden track Eeyore.

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1. (515)
2. People = Shit
3. Disasterpiece
4. My Plague
5. Everything Ends
6. The Heretic Anthem
7. Gently
8. Left Behind
9. The Shape
10. I Am Hated
11. Skin Ticket
12. New Abortion
13. Metabolic
14. Iowa

Official Bar Score: 

Picking up exactly where the insane Eeyore left off Iowa has the distinction of being the band’s heaviest album to date. The band also had made changes to some of their masks and also their image opting to use a lot more evil imagery and a darker look to fit the album.

Lyrics like “I want to slit your throat and fuck the wound/I want to push my face in and feel the swoon.” showed that the band was in a much more violent place or perhaps they were finally letting out the anger that had been building within for years. Either way it made for an album that is relentless in it’s delivery and uncompromising in it’s nature.

Still that’s not to say the band didn’t have some melody as My Plague, Gently, and Left Behind all featured melodic singing at times.

From start to finish this album is just madness but is brought down from being a five beer album for two simple reasons: Gently and Iowa. Once again the band had opted to revisit Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat remaking Gently and Killers are Quiet. This time they totally changed the music to Gently but kept the lyrics word for word. Killers Are Quiet on the other hand kept the music but underwent lyrical changes and dropped down to fifteen minutes, and was renamed Iowa.

To add to the intensity behind the record there was a rumor circulating at one point that in order to get across the pain he wanted to convey in the song Iowa Corey sang the track while standing barefoot on broken glass. He can even be heard saying it cuts during the later parts of the song. Whether this was simply an urban legend or not it just added to the persona of the album.

This would be the last time Slipknot record in this form as the next time they emerged lots had changed within the band.

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1. Prelude 3.0
2. The Blister Exists
3. Three Nil
4. Duality
5. Opium Of The People
6. Circle
7. Welcome
8. Vermilion
9. Pulse Of The Maggots
10. Before I Forget
11. Vermilion Pt. 2
12. The Nameless
13. The Virus Of Life
14. Danger - Keep Away

Official Bar Score: 

Vol. 3 The Subliminal Verses (again they don’t really acknowledge Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat) was to be the more “mature” version of Slipknot. Since the last album there had been side projects all over the place. Most notably Corey Taylor brought out his original band Stone Sour and released an album, Joey Jordinson stepped out from behind the drum kit to play guitar on an album with goth rocker Wednesday 13 on a project entitled The Murderdolls, and percussionist Shawn Crahan stepped behind a more traditional drum set for his rock band To My Surprise.

The album would also features changes in the music and vocal style as the band began to incorporate more melodic parts into their songs and for the first time also included straight forward rock tracks on their album.

Also on the musical front, guitarists Mick Thompson and Jim Root begin to start to incorporate small solos into some of the songs. Perhaps being tired of people questioning their ability they decide to flex their muscles a little. Nothing too over the top but enough to notice, especially on the opening riff of Opium for the People.

Not only were the vocals more mature in that they featured a lot of Stone Sour esque rock parts but oddly enough from a cussing stand point the usually sailor mouthed Taylor didn’t utter any profanity.

Slipknot had managed to find the perfect balance between chaos and control as they maintained much of their heavy nature but experimented with the chorus of most of the songs and even featured a few straight melodic tracks.

Still as good as the album is Vermillion Pt. 2 being an acoustic carbon copy of Vermillion leads to the score coming down a little plus while neither Welcome or Pulse of the Maggots are bad tracks I don’t actively seek them out like I do the rest of the album.

Still every time I put this album on I forget just how good it is.

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1. .Execute.
2. Gematria (The Killing Name)
3. Sulfur
4. Psychosocial
5. Dead Memories
6. Vendetta
7. Butcher’s Hook
8. Gehenna
9. This Cold Black
10. Wherein Lies Continue
11. Snuff
12. All Hope Is Gone

Official Bar Score: 

After almost four years since Vol. 3 Slipknot return with their new disc “All Hope Is Gone.” The album for the most part attempts to follow the same formula used on their previous disc opting to show a more mature side musically, and vocally. However for whatever reasons the result isn’t quite the same this time.

The album starts with a bang as Gematria (the Killing Name) is simply a ruthless track. However as good as it is it feels like it needed about a minute or two knocked off, that was somewhat of a theme of this album but we’ll get to that.

Next up is the heavy yet very melodic Sulfur which is one of the most catchy songs on the album. What follows is Psychosocial, the first single and another awesome track. Then the album becomes a little hit or miss.

Dead Memories is an ok rock track no better no worse while Vendetta manages to blend the best parts of the band into one track. Butcher’s Hook just doesn’t strike me as a song I would want to listen to very often plus at nearly seven minutes it’s too long.

Gehenna is a cool track as is This Cold Black but neither really steps out of “hey that’s a cool song” territory. Wherein Lies Continue is again an ok track but seems simply like they were going through the motions and lacks any feeling.

Snuff attempts to be this album’s Circle, but whereas Circle fit the tone and mood of the album Snuff just comes out of nowehere and totally messes up the pace of the album. It also sounds more like a Stone Sour b-side than it does a Slipknot album track.

The album ends with the title track All Hope is Gone which ends the album with the same intensity that kicked off the album.

When all is said and done I find myself torn, as I like the album very much but at the same time feel that some of the tracks lacked “get stuck in your head” quality of so many Slipknot songs of the past leaving me with only five songs of really good material and the rest falling into good or average territory.

I think 3 1/2 is a fair assessment. Not bad by any stretch but not an album you’d listen to from start to finish every time you turn it on.

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