Review Summary: Slipknot’s best album, even though that still does not mean a lot.
Yeah, the unpopular opinion of the day is: I think slipknot was a poor band, that got better with the albums, at least until this point, I don't know the 2 albums after this one and I don't mind. And before explaining why this album kind of works, I'm going to explain why the first albums don't work.
I know that making a lot of comparisons is not that good because the point of a review is to show how something is good or bad on its own, but not only I think this will help me to explain the main points, but also take it as a 2x1 review.
First with the lyrics, music is subjective in general, but I think that in cases that are way too obvious, the objective standards of the music shines out, or at least that's my explanation of this, because do I really have to explain why saying "people=***" 20 times is a painfully edgy writing? That's basically slipknot's lyrics writing in general, and even if that case it's exaggerated, the rest of the songs are the same: just swearing and lyrics that usually doesn’t go anywhere, and when it does, the lyrics and their topics are too caricatured that you just can’t take it seriously, topics that are usually the same and make the problems more notorious by the way. Another example is the song "surfacing", it has a paragraph that directly says that *** the world and don't judge him...Yikes.
People try to justify that writing saying that "lyrics were never the strongest point of metal", let's imply that excuse is valid anyways, that's still not true, because even if most of the time the lyrics ended up having the same edgy topics, at least at good circumstances the lyrics try to be more poetic, more subtle, and/or they will at least try to make the message positive at the very least to give the song a duality that is really hard to ruin, like those other underrated 2 albums in the recommended ones. And gladly, All Hope is Gone follows some of these steps, making it at least, acceptable to listen.
This album shows lyrics that talk about slipknot lyrics normally talk about, misanthropic and pessimistic songs that does not have a sense of subtlety, and some of them even directly says things like "*** this" as well, but...I'm really glad it's really a minority, unlike things like Iowa, where it's minimum the half of the album, while here it's just 2 or 3, the rest of the songs? not only they try to make the lyrics with more content so they try to be more ambitious, but even they try to do something different.
An example of the second thing is "dead memories" a song about a relationship and a break up and how he can't cure those scars, I know, in paper sounds like a song you never listened about, especially if you listen to metalcore, but compared to the rest of the lyrics slipknot had made before, it is not only a "fresh air idea", but also the execution is more mature as well: it goes for different ways and emotions to tell that than just hate, and even the song is poetic at times with metaphors and symbolisms, or well, at least the ones slipknot is not familiar with.
The example of the first is "sulfur". like I said, it is not a real different song slipknot has shown us like 40 times already, but at least the song is longer in the lyrics and try to deepen more the topic is about.
Ok, so we can tell the conclusion of the lyrics is that "even if they are still average metal lyrics, at least they are readable metal lyrics" but what about the instrumental?
Well, slipknot, alongside other bands, has shown me that being technical does not necessarily means being good, well, if this count as technical anyways… slipknot uses a lot of aggressive riffs that take several extreme metal tropes, the problem is not that itself, the problem is that slipknot just lives on that.
The aggressive riffs are too standard, which is not something bad by its own, the problem is that it’s a basic riff that is very uninteresting by its core, being riffs that only lives of the “headbang” and that kind of energy that became empty eventually, leaving us with the same trash-like riffs we have listened one hundred times.
Of course, the band has its moments in most of the albums and some songs are the exception to everything I have said, but like I said, exceptions, it does not change anything at all. And when I said “they just live on that” is because, alongside the drumming, the guitars are the only thing to really talk about, for being a band of 9 members, most of them does not really contribute that much to the song and when they do, they give an unnecessary and out of place sound (the sampler is a great example of that).
The drumming is very good though, it really gives more complicated patterns than the average drummer and gives insane fillers that helps a lot most of the songs.
And like you could expect, it's something that this album tries to fix a little bit. And like in the lyrics, it is divided in two types of songs: the "we're still slipknot" songs and the "experimental" songs.
The "we're slipknot songs" like all hope is gone, gematria, psychosocial, etc. Are, like you could expect, the type of songs I have been talking about so far...but, they still try to make the songs take different paths or try to at least polish several things.
We’ll take Gematria as an example. The song starts and the first thing you notice is that the riffs are more melodic, which is good and feels more creative. The song at the beginning has a simple structure of intro,verse, bridge, chorus and solo, and it maintains fast-paced until the solo, which gives you a really slower verse with a different riff after it and the song maintain in that style for 2 minutes, until the song recovers the pace it has in the beginning. It has just small details, but small details that makes the song way better
And then we have the "experimental" songs, like dead memories, snuff, and some minor examples: First we have dead memories, that it's a slow song with only clear singing, and snuff, which it's directly a ballad, two songs that contrast with the rest of the songs even though they still maintain the same tone of the rest of the album, something that makes them work as a rest in the middle of the storm, which makes them more likeable, even though like you could expect, the songs are not great by their own anyways, snuff is THAT type of metal ballad, the one that tries to touch the audience by making a slow and sad melody and...not much else, and dead memories is not anything else that just that contrast between the instrumental and the vocals, but they still are kind of solid songs.
as a TL; DR, All Hope Is Gone is an album that tries to stop using some cliches slipknot used and start using other cliches, other cliches that are or better even in their core, or they try to polish them.
Would I recommend it though? Not really, if you want to listen a "slipknot but good" album, listen to mudvayne's uneven albums, but I have to say, of all the albums slipknot have made, this is the album that has my respect.
