Easily one of the most anticipated albums of 2019, the new Slipknot album is sure to be picked over and examined by fans and the entirety of the music press. The album will be the follow up to 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter (Roadrunner) and their sixth overall. The band is in the top echelon in the world for heavy music, and even kvlt and underground bands that feel unaffected by the heaviest commercial band out there, are indeed impacted by a Slipknot release. In short, this band is good for metal. The kid that discovers Slipknot today, may find Carcass, or Imperial Triumphant, or Bell Witch tomorrow. Anyway, the band dropped a b-bomb on Halloween when ‘All Out Life’ (Roadrunner) was surprised released.
‘All Out Life’ came along just three weeks after a video was shot for it, but Corey Taylor admitted that band has actually been working on music for two years. Sonically, the song fits right in with Slipknot’s last album, and while they were promising Iowa levels of heaviness in recent press, the track is not quite as unrelenting. Still, some of the DNA of the track can be found in that seminal `Knot release too: dramatic intro, blastbeats, rant/chanted vocal breakdowns, gang vocals, death, and black metal guitar nods and more. Slipknot always seems best when they create a crazy cacophony and make ugly, but lovely. They do this by injecting sick melodies into the chaos, earworms where there are maelstroms of beats and DJ scratches, and gnarly riffs.
Corey Taylor is pissed off again ladies and gents. At once giving some of his most wordy, intellectual and vitriolic lyrics ever (and that is saying something), Taylor attacks the American system that feasts on the apathy of its citizens. While politicians talk about unity, he demands it and paints a bleak picture of what we have when it’s absent. ‘All Out Life’ offers a wake-up call to the sleeping sheeple. And it can’t come soon enough.
And neither can this new Slipknot album. Choose life…
8.0/10
KEITH CHACHKES
‘All Out Life’ lyrics
[Verse 1]
What a world, the horizon
It’s coming like a hell-bent killing machine
Can’t afford to be the goddamn wreckage
Burn it all again at a million degrees
Calling all the adamant upper-level
Undefeated counterfeit cunts with a reason to fear
Throw away all the meaningless shit that’s clinging
The enemy is here, I said stop
[Pre-Chorus 1]
Give it to 3
I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean
One by one against, give me the name
All you shiny pretty never-wills ruined the game
You hold all the keys so the chains shouldn’t hold you
I know you heard me, I fucking told you
[Chorus]
Old does not mean dead
New does not mean best
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine
Kill does not mean die
We are not your kind
No excuses
I challenge you to all-out fucking life
[Verse 2]
Drop that shit and put it on a pedestal
Children are afraid of the gods
Raise your hands and show me what’s impossible
That makes us even, never tell me the odds
What a bore, getting stuck in a metaphor
I don’t want to go to sleep
I need a breakdown quick in negotiations
Get it all together and remember to seethe, stop
[Pre-Chorus 2]
Give it to 3
I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean
Drive by violence, more of the same
I can see where you’re going and I’m really ashamed
Do you think when you act or just act like you’re thinking?
I got to know now, you better tell me
[Chorus]
Old does not mean dead
New does not mean best
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine
Kill does not mean die
We are not your kind
I challenge you to all-out life
[Interlude]
We are gathered here today to get it right
Repeat after me:
“I will not celebrate mediocrity
I will not worship empty shells
I will not listen to worthless noises
I will not subject myself to selected predictable choices
My time, my attention
My quality should not be bought and sold
For convenience’s sake, ever!”
[Refrain]
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
[Chorus]
Old does not mean dead (Hey!)
New does not mean best (Hey!)
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)
Kill does not mean die (Die!)
Pay attention
It’s gonna be a while ’til I really feel alright
Old does not mean dead (Hey!)
New does not mean best (Hey!)
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)
Kill does not mean die (Die!)
We are not your kind
No excuses
I challenge you to all-out fucking life
[Outro]
All-out life
Yeah
I challenge you to all-out fucking life
Yeah
(Live! Live! Live! Life!)