STONE SOUR: Audio Secrecy

Produced by Nick Rasculienecz
Released: September 2010

As Joey Jordison once again indulges his 80s horror sleaze rock fantasy, his Slipknot colleagues Corey Taylor and Jim Root are advancing a rather more mature -- though arguably much less fun -- musical argument with their third Stone Sour album.


Stone Sour has consistenty transcended the post-grunge genre. Always heavily populated by horrible bands that in effect destroyed everything grunge actually stood for, that really wouldn't take much, but the lush melodies and diversity of the performance -- particularly from Taylor -- lifts it well above the usual mire of that ilk. It isn't perfect, and tends to see-saw too dangerously and too often between radio fodder and metallic rock, but Audio Secrecy is another solid effort from the band. "Mission Statement" and "Digital (Did You Tell)" open the album in a big rocking if unspectacular way ahead of the darker, brooding "Say You'll Haunt Me", the first demonstration of Stone Sour's more layered, melodic approach this time around. "Dying" veers close to the type of insidious dreck the likes of Nickleback have foisted upon us in recent years before "Let's Be Honest" gets everything somewhat back on track.


It's from here on that Audio Secrecy seems to get confused, alternatively mellowing then busting into a heavy vibe again. After another almost balladic track in "Hesitate", "Nylon 6/6" rides in like a bastardized version of "Song Remains the Same" before exploding into what is almost a Slipknot song, albeit without the necessary twisted groove. That it takes until track nine for the album to reach this height says something about the way the track list is loaded. Indeed, "The Bitter End" and "Threadbare" are also clear highlights that loom over clutter like "Miracles" and "Unfinished" and help to emphasise that, at 54 minutes, Audio Secrecy is at least 15 minutes too long.

For the most part, Audio Secrecy delivers as a solid collection of modern heavy rock, but it feels padded out by too tracks. It also again emphasises the schizophrenic nature of Taylor and Root's musical guises because more often than not here, Stone Sour sounds like precisely the sort of band that Slipknot was formed to destroy.

1. Audio Secrecy

2. Mission Statement
3. Digital (Did You Tell)
4. Say You’ll Haunt Me
5. Dying
6. Let’s Be Honest
7. Unfinished
8. Hesitate
9. Nylon 6/6
10. Miracles
11. Pieces
12. Bitter End
13. Imperfect
14. Threadbare

Rating: 70%

MURDERDOLLS: Women and Children Last

Produced by Zeuss
Released: August 2010

Musical trends are a strange thing. If Murderdolls had debuted in 1997, they would have most likely suffered immensely from the 80s backlash that was still apparent then and then vanished without trace. So it's interesting that only five years later they were able to launch themselves with a mildly-successful album and build a cult following that was drawn from the fanbases of Slipknot and Static-X, many of whom probably wouldn't have been caught dead listening to Mötley Crüe or Alice Cooper -- and only knew the Misfits by way of Metallica -- because Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls was essentially an homage to the trashy metal and shock rock that the 90s had tried to bury.

Eight years on, with the 80s hip again and many of the original bands storming back as if they'd never been away, Women and Children Last shows the Murderdolls have their Crüe-crossed-with-Misfits horror rock schtick still firmly in place. Almost a decade has passed and the 'Dolls haven't changed a bit. Wednesday 13 intones his pulpy horror comic lyrics in a Cooperesque/Rob Zombie-like drone and Joey Jordison mines the 80s hair-and-glam rock riff catalogue relentlessly. They even manage to rope in Mick Mars to add a genuine touch as he peels off a couple of solos in “Drug Me to Hell” and “Blood Stained Valentine”, and given how much Wednesday is trying to look like Nikki Sixx these days, the old guy probably felt right at home. Just like the debut, Women and Children Last doesn’t pander to any calls for a power ballad or to anything other than guitar-fuelled schlock rocking.

“My Dark Place Alone”, “Chapel of Blood” and “Drug Me to Hell” are clear highlights, but really the whole album is quite solid, an effective pastiche that owes its look, sound and lyrics to a time when guys were teasing their hair and chicks wore blue eyeshadow, when most Murderdolls fans hadn’t even been born yet.

1. The World According to Revenge
2. Chapel of Blood
3. Bored til Death
4. Drug Me to Hell
5. Nowhere
6. Summertime Suicide
7. Death Valley Superstars
8. My Dark Place Alone
9. Blood Stained Valentine
10. Pieces of You
11. Homicide Drive
12. Rock n Roll is All I Got
13. Nothing’s Gonna Be Alright
14. Whatever You Got, I’m Against it
15. Hello, Goodbye, Die

Rating: 75%

SLIPKNOT: All Hope is Gone

Produced by David Fortman and Slipknot

Released: August 25

First of all I have to admit that I am not what could be described as a Slipknot "fan", but I don't hate them either. When I heard their first album at a friend's place years ago, I wondered why it took ten guys to make an album that sounded like five or six blokes at the most. I still wonder why they need a sampler and a DJ and a drummer and two percussionists, but there's no real reason Iron Maiden needs three guitarists either. The masks I can live with. Most performers adopt some kind of mask on stage in any case, even if it isn't a physical one, and legends like KISS, Alice Cooper, King Diamond, Bowie and dozens of others have made careers out of similar gimmicks so that aspect is really a moot point. Musically, both Slipknot and Iowa were far edgier, heavier and just more dangerous sounding than any of their generic counterparts like Mudvayne, Disturbed, Papa Roach or any of the myriad other clones that came in the wake of Korn could ever have hoped to have been, and there could be no doubting their influence and popularity. Slipknot probably turned more fans onto metal than any other band since Pantera, and have been about as contentious.

After their spectacular early success the wheels began to fall off, with key members spending valuable time on other projects and Joey Jordison playing drums for anyone who'd let him while he drank whatever he could get his hands on. Somehow though, possibly through the power of contractual obligation, Slipknot has held on and returned for a fourth bite of the cherry with the perhaps prophetically-titled All Hope is Gone. Their legions of fans have put this on the top of the charts within a day of release, probably even before most of them had a chance to listen to it, because if they had some of them may have been less eager to add this to their collections.

".execute." starts the album as a nice piece of dark atmospherics (Craig Jones and Sid Wilson still have to do something I suppose) leading into the very promising "Gematria (The Killing Name)", groove-laden, heavy and politically-charged with a modern thrash feel. It's a good beginning, but one immediately tempered by "Sulfur", a generic metalcore song that any band could do. And so it goes for the rest of the album. For every arse-ripping barrage like "Butcher's Hook", the awesome "This Cold Black" or the outstanding title track that shares the honours with the opener as the best thing on here, there's other songs that leave you wondering what they were thinking. "Dead Memories" is some kind of industrialised emo power ballad mess. Then there's "Snuff", where the band ditches any trace of integrity as an aggressive and scary metal beast and makes a grab for the mainstream rock radio market in the same way that, say, Limp Bizkit did with "Behind Blue Eyes". This is even more ridiculous however, because it's almost impossible to imagine a bunch of guys wearing boilersuits, Pinocchio noses and rapist's masks with nine inch nails sticking out of them doing a convincing acoustic love ballad. It's just goofy beyond comprehension.

Overall too, even the better songs feel like they were just slapped together piecemeal from ideas they had left over and a few they borrowed from other bands. David Fortman has done an admirable job on the production side, however, especially with a more distinguishable separation between Jordison's drum efforts and those of the percussionist duo, something that hasn't been captured all that well in the past (note "Wherein Lies Continue" in particular for this). Even so, most of the time it sounds like Fortman was the only one trying that much, and it could well be that Slipknot just doesn't have it in them anymore.

Slipknot used to be leaders. Now as half of them teeter on the brink of middle age, they're just throwing together a bunch of trendy ideas to help fund their other bands or their retirement. At least Metallica lasted four albums before they started losing the plot, and at least they still care enough to try and make a decent album this time around.

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

Rating: 65%