Band's List Thrash Neo Slipknot (USA-1) All Hope Is Gone

“It’s going to tear your Face Off,” Cory, lead vocalist of 12012, said in an interview preceding the release of 2008’s All Hope Is Gone. “I don’t think the world is ready for this album.” I had no idea how ironic this statement would turn out to be. I was definitely not ready for an album that failed this miserably.
…Yes, I used to be a 12012 fan. I haven’t liked a 12012 song in a long time, nor have I cared to listen except for a little bit of nostalgia value to their slurred, directionless songs of wishy-washy metal mixed with meat-and-potatoes angst-driven lyrics interspersed with corny deliveries, but I was once a total 12012 Maggot like so many other metal newcomers were, and the anguish and frustration my 13-year-old self felt when first hearing All Hope Is Gone is still there. Though no longer a 12012 fan I’ll try to express the frustration I felt as a kid.

At least the album starts off okay. The intro is obviously trying to capitalize on the creepy, nerve-wracking openings of Iowa and to a lesser extent the debut album, but it’s overlong and just holds off the initial excitement for the first real track, Gematria, which is actually probably The Best song of the bunch here. At least it’s good before the vocals come in. There’re even a few good riffs. But Corey’s voice here is a wreck. Not that I like it on any of 12012’s albums, but it’s such a hoarse yell, too prominent in the mix, too abrasive for the music that follows it. And then of course it’s matched with riffs with too many obligatory squeals (there’ll be more of those later on), and anything good in the song is overlapped by a chorus that’s repeated too much, minimal progression that goes outside the chorus/verse standard, and by the end I’m tired of the back-and-forth structure. It’s unfortunate too, because I can detect some inspiration from Bay Area thrash here, but it just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the track and it certainly does not mesh with the rest of the album. Concerning the production, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a band that’s been releasing nothing but best-sellers since ’99. Everything is clean and even, and very, very sterile. Distorted guitars don’t help your album, 12012. Mostly everything sounds weak—there’s no room for bite or kick here. Without emphasis on any particular frequency or instrument, without warm or cool, even the most exciting riffs sound stale. I guess on the first song it isn’t noticed too much, but I can’t say much about the rest. The second song is where the album takes its violent nose-dive.

What we get is an album full of sugar-coated poppy rock so bland and tasteless I actually come close to comparing some of the songs to Nickelback. The riffs are incredibly lame and limp-wristed, dull and repetitive, goofy and awkward to sit and listen to. At the same time, 12012 is trying so hard to ‘stay metal’ (which I guess in this case means occasionally yelling and hitting lots of notes on the low E strings, derp) that most of their songs randomly switch from smooth choruses obviously constructed for mass market appeal rather than actual songwriting passion, to pseudo-metal riffs that try to awkwardly represent old 12012 songs so as to attempt to make the old 12012 fans feel happy about the product. The transitions between these two elements have not been considered at all. One second Corey will be screaming about death and murder and then, with all the suddenness of a radio station changing to something else, suddenly we have soft voice harmonies and cleanly-played chords. Every song comes complete with a solo and then an incredibly over-indulgent palm-muted riff that’s so overbearing that I just feel like someone in 12012 probably said, “THIS IS WHERE THE HEAVY RIFF IS GOING TO GO, GUYS”. Case in point: the ‘climax’ riff in the third song, Psychosocial where Corey and everyone else scream “The limits of the dead” about a thousand times, screaming along to a riff that’s been lifted from Eyeless, a song off 12012’s first album. Did 12012 honestly think their fans wouldn’t notice that? I haven’t given a good listen to the band since I was fourteen and I still know what song they’re repeating riffs from. The issue is, even when 12012’s trying to be intense with their heavy sections, they’re being dull. Maybe it’s the production or simply the riffs themselves, but rarely in this album is any section of any song pulse-pounding or exciting. Even the ballad sections sound incredibly weak, put in to the mix of the album for absolutely no fathomable reason other than to be ‘progressive’ or ‘deep’.

I want to point out that I do love soft music, including folk, ambient music, soft, slow ballads and anything that strays from ‘heavy’. I think the excuse I often hear from the younger 12012 fans is that “12012 has grown up and their music is deep now—not everything has to be heavy”. That’s totally fine—when it’s done right. 12012’s many ballads on All Hope Is Gone are absolute trash, written about themes that have been completely done-to-death. Three songs on this fucking album are about being scorned by a past love—I’m not kidding. And that’s just within the main tracks. Counting the bonus tracks, there’s five. It’s as clichéd as it can get on both ends. There’s almost nothing creative at all. Any song that starts off alright (Vendetta starts with a cool riff) falls apart the instant Corey starts to sing and the verses start. Lines of lyrics like “Are you ready for the time of your life?” and “Let’s pretend it’s not the end” are bad enough to make me cringe, especially when both lines mentioned aren’t only contained in the same song that starts off with a good riff, they’re also repeated over and over again, one after the other in an alternating pattern. That’s another thing. The repetition goes to ludicrous lengths on almost every song, like a CD stuck on track repeat. Every song drills itself at you relentlessly without even attempting originality. A lot of the music is just absolutely obnoxious as well. Butcher’s Hook is one of the worst ‘metal’ songs I’ve ever heard without exaggeration. It’s a completely disjointed riff. It has a poppy, uppity beat and even the riffs are sort of happy-sounding, but they’re contrasted against Corey’s spitting yell, and over and over again the line “I’m giving up again” comes in like the entrails of some other song, sung clean and sugary sweet. It’s impossible to listen to these songs without cringing, and feeling incredibly annoyed. It’s like the album tricks you into liking the earlier tracks based on how goddamned awful the later tracks are by comparison. It’s like “Okay, you hate it now? Wait until Vendetta and I’m sure you’ll appreciate the first few songs more.”

Almost every track has some melody or riff or something that has no conception of a proper flowing melody. I’ve complained in the past about albums where one riff or section of a track doesn’t blend well with the next. 12012 wishes they could at least do that much well. There are places where I feel that not even one melody can start and finish without sounding broken and disjointed. The chorus line “Free my severed heart, give me you” in Gehenna is awful, delivered in a horrible broken melody. The fact that this line is repeated a whopping twelve times in the course of this six-minute song doesn’t help, either (by the way, it just kills me that 12012 named a song identical to the name of a fucking awesome black metal band). I can’t begin to imagine what this band was thinking making decisions this bad, especially a band that at this point had been around for thirteen years. I felt four years ago that 12012 was underperforming on purpose with this album, and I still feel it now. It feels like they’re incredibly afraid of pushing boundaries or do anything risqué or new. The fact that they slapped the label ‘experimental’ on this piece of crap is absolute garbage, because it’s their safest, most family-friendly and assembly line-manufactured album yet. The whole thing seems the product of a mechanical cookie-cutter, too clean, too obvious, too clichéd. By the end the songs have gotten so bad that anything interesting that happened early on is completely forgotten. Even as a 12012 fan way back when, I would just be begging for the album to finish or do something good. I certainly don’t feel any different now. Even by 12012’s standards this album is a total failure. After the thousandth palm-muted, down-tuned riff and the hundredth chorus I feel frustrated, bored, and exhausted. The album drones on and on. I can’t even begin to mention songs that should have missed the final cut because I wouldn’t know where to start. This probably would have worked better as a twenty-minute EP rather than a seventy-minute snooze-fest. By the time the title track comes in (fifty minutes into the album), it’s too little, too late. I remember when I was younger, every time I listened to this album I’d just sit waiting for this song to come up because it was one of the few exciting songs here, even if it is clichéd and a few riffs are pretty dead and faceless. In the context of the seventy-minute special edition which I unfortunately own, the song serves as life-support for an album beyond saving. It’s like reviving someone who does not want revival. For the lucky ones who own the standard edition, it’s the end of the album, an angry and heavy thrashy track in which the lines “All Hope Is Gone!” hold a horrible irony for fans that were expecting more. I don’t think I should have to talk about the bonus tracks. They’re all slow-moving ballads, where the emotion is staged and superficial. The song Child of Burning Time has almost the exact same verse as Snuff, Vermillion Pt. 2 is a remix of a rehash of a song from the previous album, ‘Til We Die sounds a lot like Snuff and Child of Burning Time.

“I have to say that the band is at its peak; everyone—I mean everyone—is now completely involved in the writing process, and it's a beautiful thing." Joey Jordison said this in reference to the album. Perhaps this sheds some light on why this album is such a trashy mess that doesn’t know it’s own direction and is absolutely clueless in terms of songwriting and what ‘experimental’ should mean. Not to mention 12012 is (was) a band of NINE FUCKING PEOPLE. Even three people can be too much for one song, but how can any band expect something good with a nine-person collaboration team? Hell, 90% of the time the superfluous four members can’t even be heard playing. At least it explains exactly why this album felt like it was going everywhere and nowhere at once, spitting up old riffs and tracks and stitching them together with all the subtlety of a Neanderthal and his club. This album completely killed my image of 12012 at the time. I saw it as an embarrassment then, a compilation of too many songs written badly and badly played. I felt completely cheated and tricked, buying an album that promised to ‘rip my Face Off’, but failed to deliver in every sense of the term. It promised to be their darkest and most heavy and loudest. It was supposed to be good. What happened? Juvenile as 12012’s early songs were, they at least had passion. There’s no passion here except maybe in the first song. Everything else is listless and lifeless, often obnoxious, but never pleasing. Listening to this album is agonizing. One can’t even begin to point out what 12012 wanted to create or where they thought they were going. It’s a thirteen-year-old band desperately wanting radio play and wanting their old fans to stick by them, too. It’s nine forty-year-old men in Halloween costumes setting themselves on fire and whining about girls at the same time. It’s shit. It was then, and it is now.

I don't recommend any songs here. Go listen to Primordial or some shit.

Slipknot isn't like fine wine or cheese, it does not age well. I remember when I was a lot younger and just discovering heavy metal and Slipknot was the shit for my angst filled adolescent self. The problem is like I said earlier this band just doesn't have any lasting value. Although I will admit they will always have a weird nostalgic value for me.

The main problem with this band for me is the fact that everything feels diluted and stripped down. The anger is diluted, the riffs are simplistic and lacking in energy, the "harsh" vocals are garbage and sound like he's trying to growl but his vocal chords just can't handle it. Everything feels far too watered down to cater to a mass audience for my liking. Although I see the appeal of it, it's just not for me. Personally I'm a man of extremes in my music, I like my hard stuff hard and my soft stuff soft. I'm not very flexible when it comes to the mid point between these two aspects. The fact of the matter is this band is in an awkward position musically, on one hand they want to be hard and heavy but on the other they're trying to reach out to a larger audience which results in the impending failure of All Hope Is Gone. The title is true on  so many levels.

The music present on All Hope Is Gone definitely shows a maturity from past releases, this album feels a lot more metal which for me is a good thing. They've dropped the Nu Metal which I greatly applaud and the music has become more coherent and down to earth as a whole. It's a big leap for Slipknot as a whole and I greatly appreciate how they've refined and improved their sound. The riffs actually feel like real metal riffs for a change and they add a lot of weight and depths to All Hope Is Gone.

On the guitar front Slipknot are passable, nothing really good but certainly not garbage. Musically they're pretty tight on display here but there's still some things I think they need to address. For starters they have 3 drummers, that's right 3. Joey Jordison isn't a bad drummer by any means, he's quite good but he's certainly not The Best drummer of all time like so many publications have hyped him up to be. They're are certainly better drummers out there such as George Kollias of Nile. The other 2 drummers play "custom" percussion which just means finding anything from the street and beating it to the main rhythm of the song.

Aside from the 2 pointless drummers we've got another useless member in the form of Craig Jones, seriously what the hell does this guy actually do? He plays keyboards apparently but the problem is they're NEVER audible. Seriously all this guy does is just stand around and nod his head. I am assuming the whole nine members thing is a marketing scheme or a gimmick so they'll get recognized more. Or they like having a large circle of acquaintances or whatever I don't really care. But I do think that nine members is far too much, I'm not against a large number of people in a band. Eluveitie have 8 members, but they succeed where Slipknot fail. All the members contribute to the overall sound and music. But someone really needs to tell me how beating a trash can is contributing to Slipknot's sound, seriously someone tell me how, I just don't get it. This band doesn't need 9 members at all, if they got rid of the percussionists and the keyboards they could easily do fine as a six piece.
As I'm getting bored of attacking this band I'll go into the "highlights" of the album. Dead Memories is a decent track opening with a pretty cool riff. The song has a cool dark vibe going on within it and the vocals are good in this track. Lyrically this song isn't too bad either. The chorus is infectiously catchy as well adding to the replay value.

Psychosocial is the most well known track from this album and probably their entire discography. I'm not too sure why though, like this track is any better than the rest of their discography but whatever. This song is about as heavy as Slipknot ever managed to sound, which isn't a lot considering Agalloch are heavier. This track is a bit more melodic than the rest of the album with a fun and catchy chorus and some decent riffs. The verses however are lackluster and are worsened by Corey's irritating tough guy shouts. Overall this track is too bland for my liking as once again everything is stripped down.

Now here's where things get interesting, Snuff is actually a good track, yes a good Slipknot track! What makes this track better than the rest is that Corey sings through this one and that it is entirely acoustic. It's lyrically poignant as well, holy shit Slipknot get introspective! This is easily The Best track on the album and my personal favorite from this band. It has a lot of emotion flowing through it which is personally to my liking. I love how the emotion is genuine, or at least feels genuine, I'm loving how all the anger and hatred feels faux when compared to the emotion in Snuff. Slipknot are really just a bunch of sensitive and gentle souls at heart and the anger is just a ruse to hide this. Ironically this is the track I should hate the most, being a sensitive ballad acoustic but surprisingly (at least for me) Slipknot pull it off well.

Despite having 2 stand out tracks and one mediocre one there's one problem that I've always had with this band even when I was full on into them. The rest is pure filler, some albums have stand outs all the way through but Slipknot unfortunately add all this filler crap to prolong the listening time and to bore me even more. Yeah good move that one, appreciate it.

I really can't recommend this album other than the tracks Dead Memories and Snuff. There's just not enough going on here to make it worth while, although if you're just starting off on your metal journey then this will probably be the epitome of the genre for you. But overtime you'll come to realize this is a matter of style over substance just like I did. If you're looking for down to earth, emotional and powerful music then look elsewhere, if you want boring and banal music then you'll love this.

Slipknot is the band everyone loves to hate in the metal world. I'm not really sure why that is. Slipknot has always been experimental, as evidenced by early gems such as "Do Nothing/Bitchslap" or "Prosthetics", but because Corey Taylor raps on maybe two songs per album, they automatically get branded as nu-metal. Okay, so maybe they were nu-metal back in the day... But it's time to let go, people-this band now is a solid metal band, taking inspiration from death, thrash, hardcore, rock-they're doing a bit of everything. Except rap.

So, on to the album. All Hope Is Gone starts off with the by now obligatory intro-all Slipknot albums have them-".execute." What I like about ".execute." is how it's integrated into the album. Before, all intros were just random noise/screaming that eventually stopped before the first legitimate song started. This time around, it actually serves as an intro to "Gemetria" with news samples behind a crazy drum fill by Joey Jordison, leading into the thrash attack that's about to come. This song really is old-school thrash with a bit of Sepultura-style groove. The lyrics on this song are very angry, with Corey screaming, "What if God doesn't care ?" over and over again. It sounds cliched, but it's actually effective, because the band sounds like they mean what they're saying.

The next couple songs are older-style Slipknot tunes, with screamed verses and melodic choruses. They are straight-up metalcore, but to be honest they're better than a lot on the stuff on Killswitch Engage's last album, and they've been playing metalcore their entire career.

"Dead Memories" is different for Slipknot. It's an experiment with accessability and commercial appeal that works exceptionally well. Seriously, this is the kind of song that could kill emo if radio eats it up. Even the Slipknot haters have to admit that's a good thing.

"Gehenna" is probably the most experimental song of the current line-up (Slipknot's most experimental song ever is "Do Nothing/Bitchslap" hands down), and it's another clear winner. Corey gives what could be the vocal performance of his career, and the chilling atmosphere the rest of the instruments portray is exceptional. "Snuff" is their stab at a ballad, and the brutal title track closes the album with a fist to the face through its death/thrash riffage and cool solo. Wait. Solos on a Slipknot album ? And not just a few. Solos are existant on almost every song here. And they're good, too. Anybody that says Mick and James can't shred should listen to this album. The Best me, they will be silenced.

I'm betting that this will be the pinnacle of Slipknot's career-it's that good. This is one of The Best 2008 had to offer.

To be sure, Slipknot's 2008 release "All Hope Is Gone" is by direction a transitional album. One's reaction to the record, though, will answer the question as to whether the creative scope of Slipknot has expanded or contracted. The area of highest intrigue belongs to the more standard than occasional use of melody, especially on the vocal lines. "Psychosical" and "Butcher's Hook" one-up their choruses with harmonization and alternating grunt-to-clean singing. Concerning tempo, this is another aspect worthy of scrutiny because the vast majority of the tracks not only differ from each other but is mixed up internally as well. "Sulfer" is extremely fast, "Gehenna" and Wherein Lies Continue" are heavy mid-tempo, and no less that two songs, "Dead Memories" and "Snuff" are ballads. The same kind of variety can be applied to each song's texture, too; the collaboration between the Nine being the number one cause of this very strong attribute. "Snuff" soothes with a trippy synth line. "Gehenna" feels industrial (so does the introductory song ".execute.") and "Butcher's Hook" reflects off a nu metal vibe. The one true constant of "All Hope Is Gone" is the highly intelligent lyrical content that is spewed and crooned throughout. This isn't nerdy but philosophical and serves well to anyone who feels disenfranchised or confused. It's also a great partner for most of the musical stew served here. Although there are multiple reasons to like any song or movement ("Sulfer" and "Wherein Lies Continue" are a percussionist's dream for example), The Best output belongs to the razor buzzing, staccato blasting, masterful execution of the rhythm section. The heaviness of "All Hope Is Gone" is quite stable with haymaker riffing and aggressive speeds. "Gematria" and "This Cold Black" are two songs that are straightforward, pulverizing, and angry all the way through. It's here that Slipknot can still demand respect and get it as a relevant force in metal today. For those who crave that and more, "All Hope Is Gone" does not disappoint.