Review Summary: Far from the group's best album, but still a valid addition to their canon, and a much stronger effort than it really needed to be.
Among the many reviled tropes of the creative arts world, one of the most frustrating is the
'contract obligation' – the work put out simply because the creator is moving on to bigger and better things, but is forced to provide one last piece of art in order to legally cut all ties with their publisher. Unsurprisingly, this type of work more often than not turns out to be precisely the type of uninspired, uninspiring, half-hearted gap filler the circumstances behind its creation might hint at, created under duress, out of sheer obligation and often in a time crunch by an artist or team simply going through the motions, and thus putting somewhat less than their full effort into the product at hand.
Given how frequent this trope is across all creative industries, and how universally underwhelming its by-products tend to be, it is somewhat encouraging to come across an instance where contractual obligations were not used as an excuse to dump sub-par material on an unsuspecting fanbase, but rather deliver a product which, while still significantly and undeniably flawed, still respects its buying audience enough to still be of at least average quality – an effort that much more remarkable coming from an act who, over the past half-a-dozen years, has had to deal with more than its fair share of turmoil and upheaval, stretching far beyond mere contract disputes.
The End So Far, the seventh and most recent album from industrial/death/nu-metal fusionists and innovators Slipknot, is just such a product. Admittedly made in a hurry, the quicker to sever ties with long-standing home label Roadrunner, the newest set of songs from the Iowa nine-piece does suffer from the lack of extra polish – as well as the effects of personal tragedies and line-up shake-ups which have plagued the group over the past half a decade – but nonetheless asserts itself as a worthwhile addition to the band's canon, if only just.
Much has been made of the darker, angrier nature of
End's overall sound, and indeed, even a casual spin reveals levels of aggression rarely seen since the group's seminal, genre-defining first two albums; no doubt fuelled, or at least inspired, by the group's feud with their label, the heavier moments across these fifty-seven minutes harken back to
Slipknot (the album) and follow-up
Iowa, presenting the sort of oppressively angry, claustrophobically aggressive sound the band first became known for. As has become the norm for Corey Taylor and Shawn Crahan's crowd, however, these unbridled aural assaults are, inevitably, undercut by a more melodic current, which – while present from the very beginning, on tracks such as
Wait and Bleed – has become exacerbated since the collective's third outing, 2004's polarizing and divisive
Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. So much so that listeners who have lost touch with the group since then may experience cognitive dissonance upon hearing a genuinely melodic, even atmospheric track, without so much as a hint of aggression anywhere across its five-minute runtime, placed as the opening calling card for the new album; and while second track (and second single)
The Dying Song (Time to Sing) eventually reverts back to business as usual - evoking both
Vol. 3 highlight
Duality and debut-album fan-favourite
Eyeless in its first minute or so – its juxtaposion with said opener,
Adderall, does set the tone for what is to come.
Indeed, the remainder of
The End, So Far's fifty-seven minute runtime is spent more or less successfully juggling the harsher and more melodic aspects of the group's music, all while throwing more than an occasional wink at more modern mainstream metal tropes. Taylor's clean vocals, in particular, often deviate from his trademark singing tone and towards a pitch more commonly associated with mid-period metalcore acts, while song structures also often take a turn for the complex, eschewing the hook-laden simplicity of the group's early hits in favour of a somewhat more mature and layered approach – a shift which, while commendable, also helps accentuate one of the main flaws with the group's songwriting, namely the fact that their haste to deliver a constant barrage of in-your-face attitude often leads them to lose sight of what makes their compositions appealing in the first place.
In fact, while this is by no means a new problem in the context of Slipknot albums, previous outings almost invariably yielded enough catchy hooks and memorable moments to make up for their own mid- and late-album shortcomings. On
The End, So Far, however, these are in much shorter supply than usual, and while what hooks there are on here (
The Dying Song,
Yen, the outstanding
Medicine for the Dead) are worthy of lining up alongside the old classics as future live-show staples, the remainder of these twelve songs too often devolves into a wall of anonymous aggression, undercut every so often by middling, unmemorable attempts at a clean-sung chorus – an issue only further exacerbated by the relative front-loading of the album, with
De Sade providing the only truly noteworthy back-half moment, with its surprisingly sophisticated chorus recalling the layered melodic beauty of
Vol. 3's
Vermilion Pt. I.
Even at its best, however,
The End, So Far never quite manages to measure up to the group's stellar early output, or even their mid-2000s 'maturation' period – though, arguably, it was never really meant to. As a rush-job contract filler, however it does an outstanding job of keeping the band relevant as they move on to pastures now, successfully blending elements from every era of the group's music – from the atmospheric aggression of the debut to
Iowa's death metal leanings and the latter-day guitar solos and clean vocals – into a whole which, while not always remarkable, nonetheless manages to sound relatively cohesive, and recognisably like Slipknot. While in the overall pantheon of the group's works, this one will likely rank towards the bottom for the majority of fans, it nevertheless makes for a much stronger effort than most other releases of its ilk, and positions Slipknot as a force still to be reckoned with even as they look ahead at a fresh new start.
Recommended Tracks
The Dying Song (Time to Sing)
Yen
Medicine for the Dead
De Sade
